The Longest Night

Now listen to your broken heart.

Sink into the wound and bathe 

in the balm of midnight.

Don't follow a star.

Your destination is 

the gray stuff in cocoons, 

neither wing nor worm.

Let your root find sap in black loam

oozing the light of distant suns.

What are a thousand golden petals

or the fragrance of balsam and myrrh

compared to the yearning

of the shadow for its cause?

Faith is to fall

through the long Winter night

and witness the falling,
until you come to rest

in the groundless,

healed by your loss.

When you are truly still

you'll hear birthless seeds 

singing in the shadow, 

bursting sepulchers of ice,

already whispering,

"April, April..."

Winter is not an absence.
Spring is not a destination.
Lose your way between
the seasons
and wake up
wherever you are.




Painting by Lori Sweet

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