“ Be light made, and it was made.”

— Gen. 1:3, Douay-Rheims Translation

But we begin in the most literal dark, our faces not lit, for once, and not blued by the flickers of phones. Mere and deep unsleeping where I am alone, and you are too far from me, though right here. Hush, loves. Can you feel me exhale, then lie back? I cannot see you holding your breath, but I know. Feel the certain heft of winter dark drape down, fold around our limbs. Attend each unreal and real loss that comes near, whispers its name, and touches our oldest scars. Did we believe we had broken ourselves of the habits of tragedy and screens? Beauty requires of us a dark, deep lacquer layered in the grain of old wood bowls. Paint over paint. Shadow upon shadow. And over a city on a canvas there always appears a sky furrowed with the endless strokes of ochre and gray before there can be stars. No angels need announce anything to those who dwell in the shadow of, live in the shadow of. O, you who stumble on the unlighted path: stop. Lie down. Hear the scratch of a match. Then catch the sharp sulphur scent of flame. Are we ready for the sudden and brilliant but temporary blue? Beloved, we adjust our vision each time the fires around and inside us extinguish. See? Only when I have gotten used to a pitched night do skies rain constellations into my eyes. We did not need another brimstone prophet. We needed the dark. Simple. Love better the body you are, and those beloveds beside you. Tend this undulant earth that still braces our backs each necessary night, this burning atmosphere that is trying with us to become, again, right, and turns to turn again, welcome of the light’s bright birth.