One Brief Shining Moment

This was the view from our deck at 9:38 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, December 21, 2012. The light will return again.

WINTER SOLSTICE

Perhaps
for a moment
the typewriters will stop clicking,
the wheels stop rolling?
the computers desist from computing,
and a hush will fall over the city.
For an instant, in the stillness,
the chiming of the celestial spheres will be heard
as earth hangs poised
in the crystalline darkness, and then
gracefully
tilts.
Let there be a season
when holiness is heard, and
the splendor of living is revealed.
Stunned to stillness by beauty
we remember who we are and why we are here.
There are inexplicable mysteries.
We are not alone.
In the universe there moves a Wild One
whose gestures alter earth's axis
toward love.
In the immense darkness
everything spins with joy.
The cosmos enfolds us.
We are caught in a web of stars,
cradled in a swaying embrace,
rocked by the holy night,
babes of the universe.
Let this be the time
we wake to life,
like spring wakes, in the moment
of winter solstice.

-- Rebecca Ann Parker

(Dr. Parker is an ordained United Methodist minister in dual fellowship with the Unitarian Universalist Association. She is president and professor of theology at Starr King School for the Ministry, and also a musician, poet, and author.)