Second Sunday of Advent

"Shepherds"

The old ewe limps on the edge,
where moonlight bleeds into firelight,
bleating into the blackness.
Lost, forlorn and unanswered.
A sign
of our frayed, fragile hope.
Too stretched for memory.
Legends now
and barely believed.
And then,
within the quick catch of breath,
this cataclysm of light.
The interruption of decaying days
of a world we no longer recognize.
All burned away.
By angels with a song.