Season's Greetings

Midwinter! Celebrate
The periodic birth of hope
Promise of redemptive grace

Tread through the cleansing snow
Shaking from our feet the old year’s residue of
Imperfect thoughts and dirty deeds

We all need light to guide us through these darkest days
Whether embodied in a
Sacred babe or sacred flame

Not to minimize the yawning gap that lies between
Your faith and mine--yours, I think,
Encompasses a deity who cares about your fate

I take comfort in the universe’ indifferent gaze
Trusting it will be what it will be
Without regard for me and mine

When I despair I sit
Contemplating geologic time
Confident that it will erase all
Gaffes, embarrassments and outright epic fails
Mine, personally, and ours, collectively

Cruel and thoughtless words, sloppy work
Fallen cakes and faulty strategy;
Strip mines, ravished forests, foolish legislation
The random deadly detritus of war
The neighbor’s monstrous addition

On many sleepless nights it’s this thought grants me rest:
In the long term all that I regret will be
Buried in volcanic dust
Crushed by glaciers
Subducted under continental plate

But for this Mayfly life, I still welcome
This phoenix season, flame’s renewing bite
The swelling sun
Imperfections shrouded in a transitory veil of white
The temporary kindness of the world

Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, Joyous Junkanoo