Advent

And now it is December. Here in Harmony the ground is still bare, but frost glitters from the roofs, the grass blades, the drooping kale. Under the cover of night, deer have advanced into the clearing, chewing the tender tips from the raspberries, craning at the frozen apples still clinging to the branches. Slopes of ice decorate the panes, and the cold creeps in through door jambs and window frames.

The beauty of the morning mirrors the weight of my stalled thoughts, as if winter is a version of Yeats's weary lines--

The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart.

--or of Wyatt's pacing fretfulness --

The frost, the snow, may not redresse my hete,
Nor yet no heate abate my fervent cold.

Poignancy riddles these waning days of the year. O warmth and light, our beacons in the twilight. . . . A quivering candle may perform a sort of glory, but ice clutches at the heart's core.