Time stretches into this long month
with its longer days moving toward
a forbidding future and
disconcerting present.
Unsure what news will break
now the truce of Christmas
is been, has gone, when only
remnants of that incarnation
remain in the continuing tale
of escape, genocide, return,
and those revelations
at the temple, allowing
Simeon to depart in peace
according to thy word.

This is how it is,
with no going back
to the kitchen candlelight,
to the fragrant scents
of food and friendship.
Whilst yesterday . . .
in a city street
a young woman begged
the cost of a sleeping bag,
hers stolen, and she,
hardly dressed for a cold day,
was gracious in her thanks
for my loose change given
when I had the means:
to see to her needs
in order to survive;
to see to her needs
in order to be human.