LONGEST NIGHT (and SHORTEST DAY)

Longest Night is a personal holy day for me. I know, because I return to it again and again, in image and word and reflection.

It wrings poetry out of a "me" already exhausted by the physical dark of the season and the cultural busyness of the purported holy days.

This year, I'm caught up in reading the prophet Zechariah and the seer John of Patmos (scribe of the Revelation of Jesus Christ), as well as The Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick.



we can hear the clatter of the hooves
     of the steeds of the Lord’s horsemen

red white sorrel sickly green pelts
     blood and flame dripping from their nostrils

their sordid breath salting the earth
     that they bend upon and trample

can you taste the stars?
     they sing of wormwood and gall



paint your face in lampblack and gray ash
    in ochre clay and in blood-stained clay

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Apparently, the darkness has influenced my muse to tend toward the apocalyptic again in my poetry. But I follow where she leads. Hopefully, I make it out without too many scars.