Advent XVIII

by Daniel Hess

The daylight that I wished so long
has come at last, after
the upstairs indoor silence
of my Grandma’s house,
riddled with all but comforting clocks
whose unfamiliar chime you wished
you’d counted but too late.
So turn again and consider the odd
shadows on the other wall
and once again the cool uncloseted
steady presence of the sheets
and quilts. And the ancient ergonomic
wonder of the egg carton mattress.

Nothing close to terror
was this waiting. But a growing
desperation. A sense that much
depended on the passage of time
and the coming of light,
whose coming certainty
was out of the reach
of a child in the dead of night.

Advent beckons once again,
calls us back to that room;
to the realization
of quiet desperation
and utter dependence
on the coming of Light.

Photo by Kenneth Godoy