A Dawn The Darkness Cannot Hide Forever

By Ken Woodley

“The people living in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”

—-Isaiah 9:2—

Remembering particles of sunlit grace that fell from our grasp,

darkness a rising abyss,

I sit at the edge of the rubbled world

amid shards and splinters of vanquished embers

that no longer flicker.

Hoping for one more final last chance.

I dangle my legs over the side

and cross them like a prayer,

stretching in desperation

into something I do not know,

something I’ve never felt before,

and only—for an instant in the night—dreamed existed

in ancient prophecies.

I am invited now off the edge

of the brokenness surrounding me

into something else.

Into the opposite of feeling shuttered in the darkness.

Waist-deep.

Over my head.

And that is where

I

find

you.

Your arms opened wide.

Your heart opened wider than your arms.

Your love opened widest of all.

I feel the midnight sky inside me

begin to show traces of orange, red and yellow

along the horizon of my own undreamt of dawn,

silhouetting the trees,

and the figures of people

running with wild abandon toward

each other,

smiling,

singing,

all of their guns and loaded words left behind them,

rejoicing at their own shadows, instead,

as I am delighting in mine,

because now they are only shadows,

no longer darkness shaped like humans,

all of us embracing the light you can bring

into the world

from within us all,

if only we believe.