Flakes of snow glow orange like fireflies
over a winter field of bare and capped heads,
candles held high in the snow swept vigil.
Light gathers itself to the campus lamp,
lone glow behind a policeman’s head,
his face like ours in shadow.
We connect light to morning and sight,
to warmth and touch, to seasons
of planting and harvest,
and in our winters, to what still returns
after the night, the storm, and the losses.
But light doesn’t care for our veneration.
Indifferent, it turns the glow back on us.
Red radiates off the side of a face at a window.
reflects the ambulance light in the night,
red hands holding back the drapes.
Flashes of gunfire on Bondi Beach
found celebrants honoring a festival
of light, light as healing and possibility,
as the connection and love that endures,
telling the story of an ancient flame.
I look up from my screen of news and photos
as light sends the shadow of a bird outside
my window, flying across my pale nubby rug.
Sunlight paints the many leaves of the jade tree
and stretches along the floor to my feet.
Light remembers that in the beginning
it took on the job of radiance and promise,
and we took on the job of repairing
the vessels that we are,
so that we might hold the light.
In recent news photos, light is reserved,
embarrassed for us,
embarrassed to have been the gold on snow,
the red glare on the cheek at the window,
the sun setting over a bloody beach,
— and asks — Can’t you do better than this?
