Advent 2020

This poem is set on the night of December 8, 2020 after I drove home from the masked and socially distant village with the half moon shining high in my windshield. It took me a while to get it right, going through rewrites over the following week. 

Advent 2020

Snow blows through, snow melts away.
Things come and things go – but mostly
go as 2020 wanes toward winter.

Southeast hangs a hazy half moon
upon the falling gloom, like a lone lamp
at the edge of the darkened village,

like a white mask across a black face
in the ICU at night amid the twinkling
pea lights of monitors and ventilators,

like a heart half of hope and half of fear.
All winter the winnowing will run while
the world leans on luck and awaits its shot.

I lean against the kitchen window looking out
at this halfling light that sails upon the night
and send after it all my silent prayers.