… And wouldn’t you know she would find the perfect occasion for a celebration that not one of us can do without now …
the invitation had read something like … once more … a downpouring of immense darkness. Embossed: white on white on the hemisphere’s longest night …
Of course we are coming.
you’d be a fool to pass it up.
Last preparations underway
Now the last pearl light grays
Late afternoon, last bits of wan sun shining through the linen curtains, pale washed, linger, in the kitchen, preparing as if for a storm.
Woolf’s “downpouring of immense darkness.”
Batten down the hatches
Eyed from the garlanded windows where revelers can be seen
Materializing
When a moment before there had been no one. Just the cat—only living thing, carrying dusk on its fur. A pale dimming universe, a late afternoon in winter and a moment of fleeting
The fleeting held in abeyance, long enough for
The bloom has a scent and the lover
has musk
But here is true fragrance—the sweet
rest
Of dusk—
Someone was singing somewhere.
Then everything receding again hurtling toward
the night’s grave oath we would each, in our own ways
take my hand please George, Elise could be heard saying as she got out of the car.
Remembering the year of the ice storm and negative numbers
Oh and yes and the request, to remain the entire night, no one to leave, to stay, yes a request—included on the invitation—from darkness till dawn.
Though what she meant and everyone knew, was required …
You are required to remain as long as the darkness.
till the light returns
For who knew what the night might exact? Or when? No one knows yet.
Now guests began arriving in anticipation. And from the distances, others still very much in transit
Like Venus, or the moon
Beautiful.
The children polished their shoes and were proud, having passed Mother’s inspection.
An adventure like no other. That is what the children thought. For when else did they ever have a sleepover at an adult party and on a school night no less?
The rules suspended. Solstice night.
Last bits of wan sun moving through the linen, pale washed linger, preparing as if for a storm the old, the old radio speaking seemingly in another language (from the kitchen where last minute preparations were being made)
and then all of a sudden—
batten down the hatches …
It was the time of drowning
Ava trembled.
Though she relished this celebration, she also felt fear at the last moment before the sun vanished. The fear before darkness. And this feeling—something akin to awe and dread, before night falls.
There’s a word in German for that.
Oh I’m sure there is Walter.
The sun pale steward, there one more moment, before the shapes are taken back, but by the time this elegant sentiment is formed it’s well, it’s too late. Or almost too late. Everything blurs.
Dear God, grant us one more sliver of snow light before the end. Darkness upon us already: 4:00 p.m.
Frost on the windowpane—the revelers collecting. I can still make out
The Brown family, and the Adlers … holding their own.
The promise of snow in the air.
Last branches against the sky.
The revelers traipse: if we ever get there.
It’s getting dark.
They come from every direction, through the brambles and the prickles, on foot, by car, by train, oh did we forget to mention—it would be a movable feast. Three stations in the night. Traversing every three hours. Everything in threes.
By morning, three houses will have been visited—but always beginning and ending here. At Ava’s—
The alpha and omega, Sabrina jokes, taking off her coat.
Ava, how can I help?
Oh crepuscular thoughts abound I know, and surely a certain melancholy
In Darkness and Splendor Let me Dwell, she whispered, nearly inaudibly.
Mesmerized now by the slow extinguishing out the window.
The winter stag.
Always the eternal questions—
Where are we going?
Why we are here—
And must die?
But no one is dying tonight. I hope I am not speaking out of turn. Or being indiscreet.
Oh Ava Klein, the most gorgeous party of the year—this celebration—the one we wait for all year
Against our vanishing—she smiles.
No one in the room tonight. I hope I am not being indiscreet, or casting a jinx.
We lift a cloudy green glass of absinthe or pernod
The glow of the green Christmas comet this year
light leaves the room and in the moment before the thousand tiny candles are lit we sit motionless surprised a little at how quickly it has all come on. Oh not to be morose—and the Mad Hatter as we always called him with his cleaning chemicals, fluids, brews arrives—twelve white long-stemmed roses for the hostess—months of the year, hours of the clock.
Great galumphing Gabriel, in his breast pocket an envelope scribbled with his annual soliloquy—most appropriate—his fading reminiscences of the war—the Resistance, Marie Claire, and Zenka—five minutes till midnight.
The swags of pine. The fire lit. Talk of the armistice. This is once what we would have called in the pre–fin de siècle setting the scene. This is once what we might have in another sort of story—
The punch bowl whole and foregrounded, soon alas to go to shards, at this point still intact.
These intimations, early intimations—
Oh yes, blood will be shed before the night’s end. And an uncountable number of tears.
Headlong into the night Zia rhapsodized—entering the house—so soon upon us now:
its velvet, its quiet, its irrefutable—
In the hallway, off the back kitchen …
It shall be a night of various proposals and couplings.
In anticipation, quickly now, they say their last daylight things—
if it were to last one more moment I don’t think I could hold off …
the world tilts away and we in preparation throw little infinitesimal things at it—offering up small songs, how charming it all is.
Off you go!
Go play my lamblings.
To the children and adieu, Sweet
Sweet
Sorrow,
precious
The evening.
Faint, fragile, blue gray and then pearl, the day’s particular pallor flickering, as if already gone.
Walter has retrieved the word in German: Torschlusspanik—gate close panic. The feeling just before dark. The fear before darkness falls. Time is running out. The gate about to close.
Do come in:
Aldo, from the other world. Anatole!
And Père Noël. The children jumping up and down trying to touch his beard—and tugging at his robes.
Last light.
Like the cat she looks out the window mesmerized.
On their way through the trees—one can hear voices floating in the last half-light. I married an anarchist, he said wistfully. He didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed it—or maybe he had, and had overlooked it, or maybe he had, and had found it charming.
At any rate he couldn’t remember anymore. Nor did it matter.
Now those two were taking their own paths, to Ava Klein’s Solstice Night party, separately, when once they had been together.
It’s one of Ava Klein’s all night, no one’s allowed to sleep till the light, end of the world bashes—with a little help from her (many) friends.
The Children’s Table set for an early dinner.
adorned with berries and crowns
Ava!
How gorgeous their festive garments. Oh to be a child wrapped in glitter and velvet and tulle.
Ice-strewn. Ice flowers in their hair. Sparkle everywhere.
The winter stag barely perceptible in the mist.
And Misty, the neighbor’s cat
Last light, just before 4:00 p.m. as the guests gather and the shapes are taken back—look, that blur of trees—
I hope I’m not casting a jinx. Candace Howland entrée, thank you for the eau-de-vie!
Look at that fire the size of a lion! In the ancient hearth. Roaring
Ghosts emerge from the thicket.
Sacred evergreens—pines and firs alive when everything else seems to die.
O Tannenbaum. O Miraculous Tree.
Olaf in his reindeer suit. Olaf!
The children prance with glee! Look at his antlers!!!!
Winter oranges in his pocket.
Nip and Nook
Last light,
then suddenly, though it was the thing they were anticipating,
how sudden, how strange: 4:00 p.m., night.
Yes, but there’s something shocking about it.
Oh such a delicate sensibility that one.
So easily ruffled.
Between the woods and frozen lake
Though we had prepared
the darkest evening of the year—can be heard now, from somewhere beyond the bramblebush.
Let us celebrate while youth lingers and ideas flow!
Oh Ree, it’s so good to see you again!
Gathered here together for the annual celebration of darkness, a darkness that one day—
It’s a little early for speeches, don’t you think?
To the night!!! Arthur bellowed. Interminable!
Now the guests began arriving in a steady stream.
Let’s honor the darkness as it comes on, and disregard the gaudiness and illusions of the day!
The longest night of the year about to begin.
And then it’s begun
Oh God yes, look, it’s begun!
The window black.
When did it happen?
While you were greeting the new arrivals.
While you were brushing the snow from Père Noël’s coat.
While you were comforting a crying child.
While you were scribbling in a small black notebook, a line of great and fleeting beauty—before you forgot …
Though we had imagined ourselves prepared for a world, now plunged inexorably into darkness, we evidently were not.
No not entirely.
When you were caring for a sick friend.
Welcome darkness. We might as well begin—it takes a lifetime.
To adjust our eyes.
The Shadows of Night
The Triumph of Time
In Darkness Let me dwell
Green and Gold and silent ground—
Thus the wheeling year goes round,
Slowly only when folk bide
Near their hearths at Solsticetide.
A wreath of candles, a wreath of laurels placed now around our darkness—our heads aflame, spinning, we whirled, tilting into the earth’s trajectory—rejoining as we did each year at this time. The earth at its most remote, tipped like that—a distant dark world in which we gather to wait—one more time. The sky. That velvet darkness come on—
that veil, that cape … at the limits of our ability to say exactly in words—(though we talked enough)—the mystery played out—strange passion play, we lift our cloudy glasses to it—cherry, essence of wormwood, artemisia, flowers floating in the eau-de-vie.
To the night,
and the many lessons to come,
pears poaching
this claret,
wine dark.
You’re here Maxim! I wasn’t sure you’d come—after the year you’ve had.
Oh Ava, we must follow the star even on godless nights when there is no star.
We must wait for the blackthorn that is promised to bloom, though the season is all wrong, and no bloom is forthcoming.
Still it’s possible the thorn may blossom in time, says Ava Klein.
Thatta girl.
Why save your songs for spring?
So true.
The ancient black Saab starts up.
From their coordinates somewhere south they started out a few hours before through the last sunset every manner of purple and crimson and orange, and they still carried that glow inside. A bowl of deep-red cherries, a pewter flask, the festivities commence—marrons, chestnuts,
Ava we’re here!
Yes, I see!
One. Two. Three
At last every candle had been lit. The children were asked to be sure none had been overlooked.
The clock strikes five. Hello hello hello! A pleasant chime sounding on the hour and marking it. A flurry of arrivals.
Four. Five.
Some of the children counted.
The annual winter solstice all-night party begun at Ava Klein’s (well her parents’ house) in the country convenes.
The yearly cast of characters gather.
Who else shall we expect?
Oh the usual assortment. And here they come now.
The Horse of Frost
Black Peter
Old Bronzen Face
The Romulus
Welcome my heavenly creatures. Come in come in!
The Godiva, the Big-Bristled Pig, Raven, the Gifting Stag. The Red Fox in disguise.
The Raven has stolen the sun!
The Raven has stolen the sun and now the children being chased shout The Raven has stolen the sun! The Raven has stolen the sun.
Isabelle and her new love do the Horn Dance. Jack is here. And Paris!
Let the Wild Rumpus begin!
Huge racks of reindeer horns adorn Olaf.
The children clamor. A case of vintage Chateau Le Bois to pour on the yule log.
Stop drinking the yule log wine Frank!
Mr. Shanks!
More Horn Dancers
The entryway suddenly quite congested.
Sing the Wren Song for us Ava Klein.
Oh not yet—
When exactly does the party begin do you suppose? This, my first Ava Klein Solstice Night Extravaganza.
In the cacophony Anatole quotes Bazin:
“See how the action is not bounded by the screen, but simply passes through it.”
The Rules of the Game.
Ava smiles—
How is this for a beginning? Someone propose a first toast.
The Swedish Mystic speaks lifting a glass of aquavit.
To the solstice. The night we have waited all year for. When the conviction that the sun will return remains in doubt and the gates between worlds stand ajar.
The gates ajar.
Not closing. The gates are open.
Then another toast: may we be reminded once again to take nothing for granted—pondering the precious handful of solstice nights allotted.
Do you know the story of aquavit? Rocked in the waves in the night in a cask …
Hints of caraway and star anise. Secret spices and herbs.
From Oslo to the equator and back.
Originally made this way because there was no direct transit.
The rocking motions.
A kind of magic. The swaying and lolling waves. Oh Nippy, you’re making me positively seasick.
Meanwhile Clive is providing pony rides there on his hands and knees and the children in their velvets and vests and patent leathers knock each other down, jockeying for spots.
Me first
Giddyup.
So poetic these toasts Flo, don’t you think?
Yes, no matter how bitter January is, it won’t be getting any darker—rest assured this solstice moment we celebrate is fleeting.
Spoken like a true optimist Flo.
The years as they dwindle.
Still the thrill of the dark—and the still quite certain notion that—oh quite—that we might have—time to flourish—a fair surmising—that the darkness sooner or later certainly but not yet—that the darkness more or less will give way—oh at least once more.
But is anything more beautiful than the end of things? Things that die to disappear forever.
Chased by a solstice ghost and Old Horst, the children raced through the house, taking circuitous routes, so as not to be accidentally caught under the mistletoe or the kissing ball.
Well that won’t last long will it?
Nor any of it I’m afraid.
Enter Rose St. Eclair, recently deceased.
The Goddess of Melancholy is Black. Her light is all inside.
Cheer up. Annika Britta is here with her first batch of Christmas beer.
I for one am happy to be sheltered tonight by this necessary shade.
The world is round like a ball turning upon itself and resting on nothing. This from his dictées. He’s never forgotten it. This oft-quoted bit of wisdom from Anatole’s geography book when he was a child in the South of France—
up, up the mother coos and then lifts the child from the floor—it’s like flying, it’s a little like flying.
Anatole, gracing us with your presence! How nice to see you!
She walks in beauty
And the steering of beauty into the remote little nook near the coat closet. Me Too—the movement—still decades away.
Because anything can happen in the night
Eyes glowing under the chaise
Mr. Black, her mother’s cat, carrying the night on its fur, Friday its day, darkness its element.
Mr. Black!
At long last—Herman and Louisa arrive—it’s nice isn’t it this annual gathering of the tribes—as we hurl fire in the direction of the darkness—
I like that “in the direction of”—sweet to think it does not engulf us utterly, utterly, entirely—(touching isn’t it that one might actually point to its general vicinity—the darkness, that is)
Shine a little desk lamp on the thing if you can old Mullen McCoy laughs—these parties, consecutively held—these offerings to the eternal dark—
I’ve missed you old boy, Ava Klein whispers and how did your semester go?
Ohhh—please don’t ask—I’m too old anymore for this sort of thing, and yet—one must—one does—they’ll be carrying me out of there in a pine box—my Friday afternoon survey class oh good God—wrapped up like Lowell’s mum—
Or melon in prosciutto …
Yes thank you. Hors d’oeuvres floating by at eye level.
May I offer you a cup of Night?
Mr. Black, surveying his bowl, slips in and then out.
When the time span during which melatonin is secreted is extended an animal knows that night is longer, and that winter is approaching.
Who is that gnawing at my neck?
aroused are you by the little lovely melatonin story it’s all so …
And on the refrigerator, a child’s drawing of the sun, and as if on some cue:
Madame Soleil waltzes in in crimson. Here I am and not a minute too soon! And she sets up shop: a card table, a velvet tablecloth, a crystal ball, a deck of cards
Arriving with a flourish. In the parlor she sets up her futuristic café,
something about the Twins, a conflagration, an Antichrist, a man in an ostrich skin suit, all the children lining up for small pox vaccines, children in cages. The burning earth. And the sun shall shine but it will give no light. Darkness streaming—
and those baffled and dizzied by her predictions come out reeling. Disoriented. Trust me she says. Harrowing as they are—
You really know how to liven up a party Soleil.
Masked, hooded, and cloaked figures to dance around a fire. The beating of breasts.
Where the gates of the Solstice opened up to the immensity of the soul’s great journey … the belief that the human soul entered and exited life through the gate of the solstices.
… From the eyes of the dead: visions: a fire will ignite, an eclipse of snow, duplicates. A flurry of children will signal the end.
And she thought of those duplicates. People who recalled other people she had known or loved—and it was not so much that they were shadow versions, but rather here now augmented and in some way more vivid versions of original longings, or more present, returned again. Slightly altered. In the man Peter who brought Harry back, and she spoke to him and to Harry simultaneously in beautiful, contrapuntal echoing and felt sorrow and gratefulness—a certain sense of—that reverberation.
Figments—
one would scarcely believe so real he seemed before me, she said.
The world vast, unfathomable.
What is yet to come: unimaginable.
Ah yes but not all of it. Not all of it unimaginable.
Yet to come:
By night’s end I suppose Fiona will ride the Porters’ Saint Bernard across the blue snow lit lawn—hugging on for dear life, the flask secured around the poor creature’s neck—a tradition of sorts, at this point—once it must have been amusing, yes? Now it is more startling than anything—how drunk she is and the dog now ancient, drooling, yes do you think he might bite her this year?
Yes, there’s a chance.
This dissipated, still dark night.
One more game of checkers before bed, the children beg.
Oh and don’t forget
Enid and the conch
But dear God, not yet.
Anatole drifting through his inscrutable universe.
In another era the women might have whispered behind the silk screen or their fans: “He is incomprehensible—like Chinese,” while the great moon filled the window
Anatole glimpsed through the cheval glass. The wings etched …
In the years she was unattached—Ava was known to—oh well never mind—
Anatole so nice to see you. You might take off your jacket and stay awhile n’est-ce pas?
Against that brilliant scrim—bereft—so stunning a contrast to his wife’s joie de vivre—well, opposites do attract—how lovely an idea when you get it right—
Have you seen my husband, Ava Klein asks, why yes—but now where has he gone?
Oh Anatole, he was just here.
I trail your trace in light and shadow.
Ava lifts a glass: may we honor the Presence of Mystery among us on this the year’s longest night.
Transfigured.
Vous-voulez quelques chose?
If you could make one more wish.
Madame Bartek pipes up. Yes to live a few more years. If I could make one wish, I suppose that would be it.
This rarefied company—professors and the like—we’re a dying breed. We’re vanishing right before our eyes. Like the pterodactyls, we’ll be extinct soon enough.
Extinguished
I say all the more reason to celebrate.
When I was a child I liked to read from the Children’s Encyclopedia.
What do you remember?
Cumulus Clouds.
The city of Baghdad.
The migration of birds.
Julian Westney, recently divorced, huddled in the corner with his hors d’oeuvres and his small entourage of women says, The soul on the way to find God must learn to know him by what he is not, rather than what he is. After it has freed itself from the love of the things of the world—
Now the profound emptiness, he whispers …
Oh to be quoting St. John of the Cross, this early in the night!
And if he thinks this is some sort of seduction speech …
I’m afraid you’ve encouraged him Ava Klein!
Leonardo, I believe is his name. Francesco’s younger brother, now him I’d like to see.
And that young man over there? Who is responsible for him?
A bonfire was being prepared for the sojourn to the next house on the itinerary.
It is three thousand years before the coming of Christ. Darkness envelops the world. To those alive it must seem as if the light has been banished forever. Crops have turned purple, then withered, then disappeared. A black light flares from the periphery. These are shadowy uncertain times when the conviction that the sun will return becomes doubtful, and when the gates between worlds stand ajar. A veil flutters at the window.
The sun might never return and so it was imperative that the fire remain alive.
Gently, she whispers, gently this time as he caressed her from behind. Witnessed on the back stairs by the children. Shoo, to bed, and they are off madly giggling
Not all: the older girl was horrified and would never forget it.
That sound.
And then silence. And then a lull.
Floating voices—dalliances—the way the days passed, a little hopelessly, but not terribly so.
Melissa seemed to be drifting off …
Yes, she’s sleeping, let her be.
So many pledges whispered in the night.
Perhaps we are simply the figments in a sleeping woman’s dream as we make our way now—get up everyone—through a storm of melatonin. Soon enough,
Onward, to the next abode. Get up while you can.
Produced by the pineal gland in the night
crucial to an animal’s well-being, ensuring that animals mate according to seasonal patterns of fertility and that reproduction is connected to a particular season
Our hopefulness, these cycles, despite everything.
And why not?
Eternal return, the young man shall continually cut himself on the punch bowl. The night has its own logic. Its erotics. Night after night. Its own magic.
Ah yes, Madame Soleil smiling in the conflagration. In the world’s end. She sees little incinerations—
Save the last dance for me. She sighs, always to know the future, but never to be believed. Comes with the territory she says cheerfully.
Counterfeit forms and monstrous faces:
Those born men are clothed in women’s dresses. Auguries, revels. Expressly devised to distract the mind from the real fear that the new year may not actually dawn, or the light come back. To placate the gods, to call back the sun. Animal skins, men in masks, a solstice child fathered by one of the masked ones.
My pagan! Who wears his hunchback and his tinkling bell.
Now filing in: the Cowhead, the Hobby Horse, the Devil
May I offer you a cup of night? Oh yes Ava Klein
In darkness under snow the roses are asleep. Annaliese Troche, the night nurse, crosses the threshold.
Outside, the bonfire: animal totems in night, ancestral figures—it’s getting very New Agey in here.
Yes very Hobbit don’t you think,
Dawson hauling in his new paintings: his maypoles, shepherds, bonfires, primordial rituals, they’re very beautiful I might add Dawson. His Solstice Processions in the Magdalenian Era series.
Horst! His nostrils flaring.
Hello Horst. Horst with his panpipe. How have I found myself hoof to hoof with Horst again?
The body is a flute for as long as it lasts. Put your lips to it.
I hadn’t understood that she had been asleep all those years so I could scarcely have fathomed what it could mean to have her awakened—sexually that is.
I was with stunning rapidity in way over my head. Her level of need …
Older men constantly marrying younger women they had no aptitude whatsoever for.
That bewildered look: shopping sprees … zumba … salad bars …
And as if on cue: Enid.
Enter Enid and this year’s harem
And you were up to the challenge no doubt I imagine.
Yes, Enid sighed, someone had to meet it.
Paul is seeing stars. Enid drives him wild. Always has. Sing a little Schubert song, why don’t you—the one about the linden tree—
It’s the time apparently for Enid’s story of the girl and the conch
Already?
Not already?
For what would the solstice party be without it?
Yes Enid says. Well, having knocked on my door she announced that it was her birthday, and that her visit to me was a gift, she was giving herself a birthday gift, I don’t recall ever seeing her in my life. A present to herself, she said unbuttoning her coat. Underneath which she was completely nude.
And? Don’t forget Enid.
And she was carrying a conch shell. Shiny. Slippery.
And what kind of coat Enid?
Oh a trench coat! Can you imagine?
Yes we can.
Later I was the one blamed for having taken the bait as it were. Oh to be a cult figure, Enid sighs, to never be seen for who one actually was—always outside of one’s actual life.
Intoxicating night,
when modesty leaves us.
Enid who had some early minor success as a novelist. And this is what awaited one.
A burden I’d like to have for sure.
Yes, yes, a student from somewhere surely—but not mine.
But to have allowed her in! She might have murdered you don’t you think? A complete stranger at your door?
And how would she do that do you suppose?
I don’t know, asphyxiation?
Nonsense, Zenka says evenly. Women don’t harm one another. Despite your garish fantasies, Paul.
Here, here, let’s lift a glass to that one.
A conch shell. Oh do tell. The dark allows for delicious confessions does it not? Yes—and year after year we have to hear this.
Glimmering.
Does it ever get old?
No, it does not.
A trench coat of all things …
Let me get this right. She had assessed your interest somehow several days earlier, amongst the library stacks apparently, and it had given her courage. Something about the way your eye had rested on the small of her back. There is no other word for it—the way she looked that April night at my otherwise rather unremarkable door.
“From Everest Mountain I am falling at your feet forever Mrs. Everling.”
She was glistening—there is no other word for it …
The audience sits transfixed.
Aldo’s immune system, utterly compromised.
Oh not the jeux de vérité—not yet, not this early, let’s wait a little bit if we can.
Reveal Charles, Dorothea Daitch screeches, that great golden phallus to us now and get it over with! No, no, not yet. At the stroke of midnight and not a moment sooner. And they look grimly to the clock.
And on the list of things to look forward to—
The children dropping off one by one as if administered, on the staggered half hour, a potion.
Ava being summoned to the night nursery.
Have you seen Anatole by any chance?
Passing under the mistletoe—at your own risk, the slightly shy Alexandra Miller, chirps—anything might come of this night, might happen on a night like this—and he flashes her that smile:
the young Ted Hughes, someone remarks.
When I think of Sylvia alone with those two babies freezing in that flat I simply cannot bear it.
Ah that boy over there is bleeding!
Marie Claude don’t forget we need to hear from you and Zenka tonight about the war before memory fades.
The dream
… in which I might have crossed the known world in a dirigible—at night looking for the right way—
strange light of the end, understood somehow in advance.
One day on some deathbed will that be the realization …
something quite else.
I had wanted something quite else. More spacious, perhaps. Not this.
and that weirdly all along I had had inklings—was on the right track as it were, but—
These solstice intimations—
ah, the door
The Hour of the Wolf is fast upon us. In a whisper. The hour before night and dawn: when most people die, when sleep is the deepest, when nightmares feel most real. The hour when the demons are most powerful. It’s also the hour when most children are born.
Quoted immaculately Kristen!
And Jefferson now bends his head and says a small prayer courtesy of Emily Dickinson. And lifts a glass:
Of God we ask one favor,
That we may be forgiven—
For what, he is presumed to know—
The Crime, from us, is hidden—
Immured the whole of Life
Within a magic Prison
We reprimand the Happiness
That too competes with Heaven.
A shadowy figure comes from a foyer or hallway into the dimly lit parlor, dusting off the snow. Who is this young woman we don’t know—someone’s prodigal daughter, or lover perhaps. Or maybe she is coming to greet herself, returned from psychic exile, disguised.
Do come in.
See how the night doth enfold us.
Priscilla fresh from the Met Opera chorus.
Humming
Adrift in the night nursery now. The Wonder Children who were conceived with virgins and deities—with power from both worlds—
our protectors, our salvation, whose appearance is made manifest the darkest time of the year.
Awaited through human time: Osiris, Mithras, Apollo, Attis, the Christ child.
Born in the dark, emanating light for as long as the world has existed,
Illuminated by a star, a moon, a silver cup
The season promised their reappearance if only in the mind, and putting the last of the babies to bed, one could not help think of all the Wonder Children—and soon the nursery was populated, cribs aglow.
Ava at the periphery.
Earlier in the evening, for the children, Joseph had dressed as Père Noël.
And the Santa Lucia girls sang.
Cloudberries afloat in a pewter bowl aren’t they lovely Lucinda!
Wrapped in the night’s velvet—its lushness, its quiet, its irrefutable beauty.
One loves the world.
And in the end, would like to live again—if it were an option.
One loves the night world—
The children now asleep under the paper roses.
The children growing as they sleep, that is what I find so remarkable
And outside the winter roses
Growing beneath the snow
The candle flickers
And Misty the neighbor’s cat flickers as she walks past soundlessly on padded paws looking for Mr. Black—
The lullaby, the candle, the cat—the tangible presence of Mystery among us …
This strange pull both forward and back—
Downstairs, all move to the door, the bonfire, and the next house: the Rokeby Mansion.
The night on our fur, Olaf, proclaims!
Ava it’s time, someone sings sweetly from the bottom of the stairway.