Coming or Going

because, somehow, it always will be,
sealed within the tight retaining amber
of the storehouse of the mind?
 
This season born of darkness
and the keen, old cutting wind,
seeks to obliterate all cherished thoughts
of Summer’s play, Fall’s sunlit afternoons,
turns the reluctant soul toward the empty nights
to be, when thoughts and even prayer fall
shattered back upon the earth from bright
and hard-as-crystal, frosted stars.
 
Then from beyond the reach
of all remembering there shines
the first, yet faint-familiar gleam of fire,
a shuttered lantern flickers in the rough
and ready cowshed of creation, as a cry
is heard, a living warmth is wrapped in bands
of tenderness, and past becomes the promise
of a newness can turn now into forever.
 
J. BARRIE SHEPHERD