December When the sea is huge and raging and early in the afternoon the dark is down; out there, at the very ending of the land, an orange softness to the sky, and then the clouds are parted for a moment blue, and all the islands flooded in a brokenness of light. You stand and watch and want to be there in that blessing of the light, and wonder if anyone is standing in its midst and bathed, baptised in this December’s breath of light. There is no need for envy: it is enough to wait for light to fall and in the waiting know that one day it will fill your hands, your heart.
Kenneth Steven is widely published as a poet, a writer of fiction and as a translator (from Norwegian). The lion’s share of his work is inspired by Iona and the Celtic Christian story. His volume of selected poems Iona was published a couple of years back by Paraclete Press in the States.
Amethyst Review 