Winter Night

Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,

Thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;

All laud we would render: O help us to see

‘Tis only the splendour of light hideth thee.

                                                           Universalis Hymn

                                                                                                 Google Images

I listen to the quiet murmuring 

of the thickening ice 

encasing the upper branches of the trees,

where moonlight blends

this bitter cold

with the crackling fires

of the shifting stars:

and what manner of uncertainty 

faith brightens on

the long dark undoes,

uncoiling the blacker hours

of our deeper sleep,

until hope begins brightening

in the eastern sky,

hues of You 

dropping 

from the eaves 

of night

and overspreading chalk

 of waning moonlight

dusting 
the quiet murmuring 

of the thickening ice.