January: A Tale of Light & Dark

 

 

January - Betty Adcock

 

Dusk and snow this hour in argument have settled nothing. Light persists, and darkness. If a star shines now, that shine is swallowed and given back doubled, grounded bright. The timid angels flailed by passing children lift in a whitening wind toward night. What plays beyond the window plays as water might, all parts making cold digress. Beneath iced bush and eave, the small banked fires of birds at rest lend absences to seeming absence. Truth is, nothing at all is missing. Wind hisses and one shadow sways where a window’s lampglow has added something. The rest is dark and light together tolled against the boundary-riven houses. Against our lives, the stunning wholeness of the world.