5th January
Eve of the Epiphany of Our Lord
Twelfth Night and the drawing to a close of the twelve days of Christmas and the vigil of the Feast of the Epiphany!
12 Days of Christmas Carol:
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me twelve Drummers Drumming: The twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed.
Poem: Luci Shaw – “Rocky Mountain Road, Epiphany”
The steel rails parallel the river as we penetrate
ranges of pleated slopes and crests—all too complicated
for capture in a net of words. In this showing, the train window
is a lens for an alternate reality—the sky lifts and the light forms
shadows of unstudied intricacy. The multiple colours of snow
in the dimpled fresh fall. Boulders like white breasts. Edges
blunted with snow. My open-window mind is too little for
this landscape. I long for each sweep of view to toss off
a sliver, imbed it in my brain so that it will flash
and flash again its unrepeatable views. Inches. Angles.
Niches. Two eagles. A black crow. Skeletal twigs’ notched
chalices for snow. Reaches of peak above peak beyond peak
Next to the track the low sun burns the silver birches into
brass candles. And always the flow of the companion river’s
cord of silk links the valleys together with the probability
of continuing revelation. I mind-freeze for the future
this day’s worth of disclosure. Through the glass
the epiphanies reel me in, absorbed, enlightened.
__________
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The featured image is “Adoration of the Magi” (between 1304 and 1306), by Giotto, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
