Saturday, December 25
ADVENT
Dark times. December.
Earth's axis on the slant
and the minutes fall from the day
a few at a time.
So we outsleep the dark,
sleepwalking the grey hours.
Impossible to believe in light,
or a birth, until
this winter sunrise, fox
going home with blood in its mouth,
all the dawn's chemicals in its eye,
and the sky astonished.
(Gillian Clarke)