Darkness doesn’t fall
so much as it engulfs,
snuffing light from every furtive corner,
hiding places of shame and pain
and desperate
futility.
The detritus of addiction
litters gritty streets,
invisible remnants of the insatiable
desire to numb, to forget.
No glimmer escapes the cloaking,
oppressive night.
Souls bleed from unseen wounds,
deep red ooze merging
into blackness.
Suffering continues
years without end,
and humanity cries out
silently,
yet the clamor pierces eardrums
with its agonizing scream.
Eyes long emptied of a million tears
strain in the dark,
looking, looking
for the faintest hint of dawn.
How long?
How long until some One
lights a candle
in the mean streets of Bethlehem,
until a faint glow
begins to spread
and hope long dead
flares,
a tiny flicker in the dark.
Will it be now,
in this infant god,
whose flesh makes all flesh holy,
whose entrance on earth’s dark stage
sanctifies human experience
and whose wounds heal our own?
Will it be here
that one small flame begins
to dispel the deepest gloom,
that one small flame of love
begins to warm
this long, cold night?
Here and now,
dawn begins to reveal the horizon.
