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....

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

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