On this chill night in mid-December a waxing one-third moon, the Cold Long Night moon - shows itself in pieces through the red cedar stiff branches, tall and evergreen. She is a sign on this dark and clear night, harbinger of chill in silver and white. In pieces yet whole, as we, broken bright. She has moved silent and slow over ice and brilliant snows of dark Decembers. She hung three-quarters full on the boughs of heaven when first I heard the silver bells and saw tinsel stars above, adorning and adoring. Myself? A babe with cries imploring! At twenty years of Christmases my Cold Long Night moon was nowhere to be found. She was a new moon, no moon wandering unseen over the land. Myself unseen. I was barely a man. When still too young I stood behind altars and ambos shielded in embroidered vestments, collared white. I read the Gospel of Peace. That night, the waxing Cold Moon, almost full, filled with light the desert night. I remember it not at all having lost it among all the words. Many years have gone and now the Cold Long Night moon continues its descent into the ocean just beyond the cedar horizon. On Christmas? She will be three-quarters full, waning, likely to be lost in rain, hidden by scudding clouds holding snow and ice. Never mind. She will be there, seen or unseen, as she has been for all the years I've ever known. ______________________________________________________________ Portland, Oregon - December 13, 2021
Author: Korin Thomas
Darkness. Silence. Waiting.
When you see darkness and hear silence you know that Advent has come. Look around. Sit still. Speak not. Wait for what is coming. Wind in the trees. Dog bark. Traffic hum. A human cry, far away. This is Advent. This is the season. It is dark out there, perilous chill. We light our candles, consult holy books to little avail. They do not know our paths, what ways we were set upon when we were born. There are choices we still can make, must make for the good of us all. Only this, to walk on the dark paths, to listen but not hear a call. Our words are meaningless now, our thoughts like clouds passing away. Let us wait to see what, or who, will come. ____________________________________________________ Portland, Oregon - Eve of the Feast of St. Nicholas. December 5, 2021 Of all the liturgical seasons set by the Christian faith traditions, Advent is the most meaningful to me. The watchwords of the season are three: Darkness, silence, and waiting. But, beware! Advent is a pseudo-preparation for Christmas. We cannot wait for an event that happened long ago. We can only wait for what is still to come and woe to anyone who thinks they know what that might be! Therefore, no matter what one thinks of the Christian traditions, one cannot doubt that darkness, silence, and waiting are conditions of human life that must be taken seriously.
What We Need
Fox sparrows kick under the snowberry thicket, while chickadees peck about in cedar needle duff flinging fallen leaves with abandon, foraging under the gloomy gray November cold sky. Squirrels, furred and fattened, are not slowed while brush rabbits, calm, chew grass blades or just lie low, waiting, on what I do not know. Winter quickly comes in rain and cold. I've done what I could for the creatures - fallen leaves left to molder on the ground, twig and branch brush heap piles for the bugs. Here, a pile of small rocks lies still by the fence, there, cut logs on the ground, decaying and soft growing lichen as green moss on rock slithers. It is time to let the yard and all its inhabitants fend for themselves while I tend my own inner life within the stillness that only winter can bring. I'll be glad for the season's lights hanging about reminding me of how we all are finding the way through our own thickets where we may hide and where we may find what we need for life. ______________________________________________________________ Portland, Oregon - November 23, 2021
Circle of Heaven
Round and round we walk the circle of heaven the way before us opening step by faltering step. Slowly moving, never ceasing; each step an eternity - worlds being born, worlds falling fast away stars bursting to life, stars flashing out in flaming array. Walking the circle of heaven on a cold starless night. Cloud shrouded moon, blown branches bending birds hidden in them swaying, brown downed leaves swirling. We walk on paths of the wild world spinning round, as if only in our withering gardens, dazed and spellbound. _____________________________________________________ Portland, Oregon - November 19, 2021
Embracing Darkness
I wake in the morning to darkness beyond the clock and shade. Weary from sleep, knowing the time, I throw back warm covers, step onto the cold floor to make my way into the lingering gloom of the gray day that remains just the shadow of night. In this season we will dress up darkness in bright lights, adorn it in green wreaths accompanied by songs and bright laughter until we forget from where we came where we are going and who we are. There are those who do not ever forget. Angels seek our hidden and unspoken souls, desirous to gather up all we left behind - a friend, a failure, a love we did not well love - when, afraid, we tried to banish darkness. I have had my dark days, remembered, that I cannot take back and make light. Perhaps I may, as this season's offering, lay them all upon the table of night and for them, offer thanks and praise. ___________________________________________ Portland, Oregon - November 8, 2021
The Bell
In every season a bell, struck by an unknown hand, sounds through the wind. A quavering deep note awakens, lifts and pulls out of the open door into the live and wild world. I would sleep and dream lie in soft bedding drift off again to wait for bird call, train whistle - sounds I know - but, in every season every night and shadow move, I hear a bell - the same - that calls, beckons, bewitches. ___________________________________________ Portland, Oregon - October 27, 2021
Faithfall
Of faith I learned when a boy, squinty-eyed, afraid, nick-named, in the pews of St. Joe's. My father beside me but I did not know what he believed of the faith we were taught and held. He took it with him when, years ago, he went away. Of our true selves we were not taught being little important, not necessary to the mystery of our learned faith - dogmas, creeds, ritual formulas, words upon wearying words - received, memorized, recited. Of our true selves we did not know were not allowed to search and find, to wander off the path of saints to travel dark adventurous ways. It did not matter who we were mattered not for they did not care whether we artists were or poets seeking truth in the stars or our dreams. It has taken too long to come to this the road not taken, the unworn path. It seems I see a light out there where I have never been before. Is it, I wonder, a light behind a door opened now, beckoning, that may close? Is it a trumpet sound I hear out there somewhere in the woods, a call? Perhaps I'll step a foot onto the briared path then maybe another into the dark wood where scarcely can I see by the evening light the way, the open door, the light within. __________________________________________ Portland, Oregon - October 22, 2021
Not Broken
Each day I wake to dim light spreading slowly, sending away darkness, spreading out the land. Here it is! I say to myself - the new day not yet broken! Hope swells in waves. Then, as the sun shines or the rain pours and the cold, comes news of the world washing over me, bending my wishing spirit, my heart's desire, my weary and forsaking hope. What to do but work and pray? One hand holding the sacred earth the other the splendorous sky. Another night begins - autumn eve writing under lamplight. Bent but not broken, my hope. _________________________________________________________________________________ Portland, Oregon - October 8, 2021
What Became of Summer?
All the years I waited through winter for summer, it's warm and calm breezes, sinking toes into beach sand, lying in green grass under slow clouds drifting as if going nowhere, nowhere. Playing catch with my cousin, bikes out all along the Monument Road to where, in winter, ski slopes rose above Silver Creek, and in summer all green wood and forgotten meadows. We did not know what would come of summer when we also silver were, that it would not be what it always was that healing season after the winter storms. Now I wish for autumn leaves, the coming of rain and cold - healing after burned leaves, drowned fields, the empty air where once swirled myriad butterflies, birds and bees. Where the species once abundant swarming in all the fields, forests, and farms? I will take a breath in autumn, a deep breath as calm, as balm watching the rain fall hearing it on the roof, pooling in the ruts. Here is the cool wind from the west that brings an end to summer and to what summer has become. _________________________________________________________________ Portland, Oregon - September 29, 2021 I write from the Pacific Northwest of America. While other places in America and the world experienced devastating rains and flooding, we experienced devastating heat and drought. I support the fullest of the Green New Deal to begin to take seriously the effects of human caused climate change.
Mystic Chords of Memory
A song hums before the flooded womb, beyond the darkling grave thrumming through our every dream's night and in each shining shadowed day. Moments, when the cool breeze of autumn floats through the open window, I think that I can make out a melody from far away leading me on until my sad restlessness comes and I find there are things I could do that needn't be done but I do and the sound I thought I heard dissolves into loss. Then the moon, almost forgotten, rising on the face of evening's tender blush, takes up the song and I hear it again, faint, from beyond the edge of night, or, it sings within the soft lights of dawn or dusk, in shadows or the still of silence. Perpetual and persistent though it is, I stop to listen only by chance and surprise. What would my life be if I were to sit longer with that patient melody - let it enter me as much as the air, as much as my own beating heart? Might I know of eternity and heaven, of grace transfiguring all and all that is? Such thoughts in the night - follies of imagination! Except, others have intimated as much and more and who am I to say that their engagement with the sublimity of surrendered souls are only the ravings of lunatics gone mad from too frequent forays into darkness? The night is getting on and I am ready to sleep drowsing in the soft cool darkness that is this September eve. The birds have retired to their nests, the squirrels to theirs and the melodies of the night are reserved to a distant rumble on roads and rails out beyond the silver streetlights. Still, I will sit quiet for a while and listen that I might hear that faint murmur telling of what was before I was born and what will be when I have passed away. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Portland, Oregon - September 26, 2021 The poetic phrase, "...mystic chords of memory" was used at the end of Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address. He, indeed, was a poet, using words as artfully as any politician, or anyone for that matter. Thus, I steal the phrase from him but at least here give him proper attribution. My use of the phrase is not in any way intended to mimic the context or philosophy that prompted his original use.
In Cascadia 