LONGEST NIGHT

Sunset on the North Hill of Puyallup.

The longest night has me in its clutches. It is on the back side of two nights of insomnia. I am worn thin—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

The darkness of the season strips me. Soon, I am only wounded flesh, aching bones.

The cold of the snow that came and went in a few hours still lingers. I feel it in my body. I feel it in my mind, it being conjured up in my recent reading of Peter Verhelt's Tonguecat at the recent Post Defiance Winter Reading, as well as it reaching for me from this night in 2007. I feel it in the anger that it is quick to surface as people crowd around me (and from this night in 2012). I feel it in my soul as the loneliness of Advent waiting shifts from anticipation to apathy. I feel the need to hibernate.

I just want to curl up with a pint of winter warmer and a good book. I want to take a few sips and read a few pages and drift into a nap, short or long. But I want to rest, to sleep, to dream.