Christmas Dawn

The rise of winter dawn at first is slow, a paling of the night, a pooling blue that spreads, pulls in a clearer eastern glow, then bursts, gives back the landscape scrubbed, rinsed, new. But Christmas dawn has greater power, insists on lighting every crevice, shutter, blind, knocks on the doors, finds cracks; no lock resists the keys of light, nor can thick curtains find a way to stop it. Heaps of ribboned gifts against the windows never blot it out. It pours its birth through chinks and walls. It drifts through toughest stone like heat, puts dark to rout. This trust, this truest gift we celebrate; this day that will not fade - no gift so great.