The holy settlement of hours,
Whose silence now descends like sleep,
Who gathers us within its keep,
And lets alone the hearth flames leap,
Affirms, for now, the only powers
Will be those we have claimed as ours.
A stillness, here, although the world
Spins with the grind of stone on stone,
Continues stripping flesh from bone,
And tramples over prayer and moan,
While even those who now lie furled
Feel how its serpent’s tail has curled.
So, flame, burn brighter for my eye
Not in defiance, show, and pride
Or to blot out all we’ve decried,
But that our gaze might see inside
Some flicker of what’s not yet nigh,
Where all is light and none shall die.
James Matthew Wilson is a poet, author and professor of creative writing. This poem appears in his newest collection, Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds (Word on Fire, 2024).