Time of white ice

Christian Century, Dec 20, 2000 by David T. Manning

Eternal ice, vast windless
chill. Clear arctic waters'
quiet-light. All night

the stars and lacquered
branches burned. All leaf
and berry of the holly white.

Again the ancient signal
has gone out and somewhere
in the night star-followers embark.

(And You, Creator, Child,
Comforter, again I felt the beating
of Your fatal heart.)

Into a night of need for gifts
in myrrh and aloes wrapped we slept
until the ticking of some clock

or summer dream stirred ice
set off a rooftop avalanche.
Clear light of morning shows

three trees against the sky
in whitened silence--world
bundled in the stuff of light.