First Day of RAJAB, Eighth Day of HANNUKAH

Start of a holy month, first sunshine in two weeks.
First day of winter, too, bracing for the longest night.
Shadows of bare trunks lie parallel and straight
across the stream, like banding in ancient bedrock,
or like rungs of a ladder leading up, up, up. 
We all go about our business under the sun’s vaulted dome,
speeding towards a darkness that needs no translator.
One candle, I stand beside others holding this small light.

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Thor Bacon

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