The Eve of Christ the King
Gray, fading, year-worn light
portends an absence of anticipation.
No consideration, even, as to whether
or not it will begin again after
the evident onset of the dark.
A sterile, non-expectant hush enfolds
the city streets below related, I assume,
to the most-traveled-holiday-of-the-year.
Awakening from brief but burdened sleep,
unwilling to resume these shallow interests
that mask decline and fall, I permit
the full weight of the ordinary to occupy
my consciousness, remembering as far back
as I can – as child, young man, new father –
other wakenings into this wintered sense
of raw futility, the clear lack of any motive
to do anything, or nothing.
Tomorrow I must climb the pulpit stairs
and – quaking – sing of royalty and reason,
of a late-November life and death that,
seasoned by sheer majesty, could glimpse,
bestow the pain-embracing promise
of an April sunrise far beyond
the treason of these waking moments,
shadowing hours and days.
— J. Barrie Shepherd
