Embers Fading

Sitting by the hearth on a drizzly cool afternoon in late April. Candles over the mantle attempt a feeble cheer. The fire is dwindling to coals as on the wall two candles flicker. The flames’ orange hues escape the windows to bid The delicate spring yellows of daffodils to shake off Their drowsy sleep under cloud-grey skies. By the hearth I’m sitting, Warm enough, but wondering. Our Christmas cactus is blooming again, As it does at Easter every year, As if it senses the bookends of life. “It came a floweret bright amid the snows of winter, When half-spent was the night.” That same bloom was cut in its prime as another day, Half-spent, slipped into darkness as if ashamed To look on Calvary’s desolate scene. That hardy bulb of Heaven, undeterred by its earthy tomb, Burst forth in new life so that we might never again Be desolated, without hope and without God in this world. I look again at the cactus by the window, its blossoms fading. Soon it will be gone. And the candles on the mantel wall shorten to the tempo Ff the pendulum in the hallway, Clicking toward the chiming hour. Its weights are slipping slowly downward Toward the center of the Earth Under the relentless pull of gravity. By the hearth I sit, Embers now fading, candles low. A heaviness pulls my soul; A drizzle damps my spirit. Half-spent is my night. Dawn is nearing.