Advent Calendar

He will come like last leaf’s fall.

One night when the November wind

has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth

wakes choking in the mould,

the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like the frost.

One morning when the shrinking earth

opens on mist, to find itself

arrested in the net

of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.

One evening when the bursting red

December sun draws up the sheet

and penny-masks its eye to yield

the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,

will come like crying in the night,

like blood, like breaking,

as the earth writhes to toss him free.

He will come like child.

— Opening poem by Rowan Williams, read by Bonnie L.

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On This December Morn

I want to feel it all

this, THIS:

the splatter of remains– 

oyster shells, pine needles, leaves,

revealed and unrevealed roots

arrayed like pick-up sticks,

and the damp dark soil

receiving, holding it all, like the sky

the galaxies of stars.

Skinny strips of moss

defy the barrenness,

stand their green under drops of bark.

Acorns crunch, stones roll aside

as my feet dip and rise.

On this winter solstice Eve

rustling wind 

pinks my cheeks, chills

my fingers as I write,

and I am here, HERE,

saying YES

to the coming of light.

— Amy Webb, December 20, 2025

— Photo by Nancy W.

—- Photos by Bonnie L.