Winter Solstice Darkness

 

It is the winter solstice. 

The days are short, cold, and dark.
There is little light.

Or warmth.

And very little good news.

By the time we wake in the morning,

There are only six hours of daylight left before it's dark again.

We are under siege.

Every day is the same.

It is always night.
In this endless year

The Covid-19 pandemic with its mind numbingly scary

Knowns and unknowns surrounds us.

We shelter in our homes,

Avoiding each other as if each of us

Might be the Angel of Death in disguise.

Two weeks ago

Awesome's grandfather tested Covid positive. 

Five days later, he joined the ranks of
The hundreds of thousands of Covid victims. 

And a few days later, we sat, the three of us

Awesome, David, and I, on our couch

In our black dress clothes,

Watching the virtual funeral on Zoom.
The prayers, the remembrances, the ceremony

And then men in black coats shoveling dirt

On the top of his coffin.

It was a bitter thing. 
In a year filled with dark, bitter things.

That Awesome's January epilepsy surgeries weren't successful

In stopping her seizures.

And that her trial of antiepileptic drugs,

Started in late April

Has been equally unsuccessful,

Only adds to the darkness

And the unknowns of the future.
And the feeling that the darkness
Around us has become dominant.

As the days have gotten shorter, 

The light has diminished.

And the darkness, like the cold, creeps in, 

Surrounding and overwhelming us,

Stealing the little light we have left. 

The darkness bears down and challenges

The little hope left.  

It makes our bones cold.

Our hope has folded in on itself.

Becoming increasingly compressed 

Until it is a tiny thing,

Tucked away,  Dormant.  Like a seed

Waiting in the darkness.

Waiting for a signal that 

Something like life 

As we once knew it

And/or as we once imagined possible,

Might someday be possible.

The tiny seed of hope waits

For the glimmer of a promise that

Warmth and light will return.

But I have to ask--

If warmth and light were to return, 

Would our little seed of hope

Still have the power and magic  

To germinate and grow again?

Would it have the power and magic

That live seeds always have,

To push up through 

The dark, warm, moist earth,

Tentatively at first,

Vulnerable, but

Still alive? 

Would it still be capable?

That question is unanswerable right now.

Right now life in the darkness, 

In the isolated safety of our homes

Is all we have. 

Right now, all we know is that

The darkness of the

Pandemic winter

And intractable epilepsy

(despite surgery)

Stretches out before us

Like a long, dark tunnel

We wonder at its deadliness. 

Its miseries.  Its unknowns.

And at the patience,

And luck required

To survive it.