The longest night each year we lose the light.
A heavy shard of ice from the steep roof
falls
and takes the wire off as proof
nature
has a way to make things right.
The
forest keeps its silence all the same
muffled
as a thickening snowpack falls,
stifles echoes of the frantic calls
while
we grope in the dark to strike a flame.
Even
light cannot allay the fears
rekindled when a frail connection broke,
and
knowledge from the last ten thousand years
extinguishes in wisps of candle smoke.
As
if in ancient caverns we are stark
and
wise again like all who fear the dark.