The Threshold of Night
Compline is the Church’s night prayer, facing the danger at the edge of darkness, rendering time holy, quieting minds for rest.
Compline starts with stillness.
Silence. Candlelight flickering.
Shadows dancing on ancient
talismans: wait for it—
The breath of air brushing
past, the presence, the cloak
of darkness spread gently in
the silence. Holding back the night.
Voices rise, a chant written in the
stars, transcribed centuries ago when
the world trembled with fear.
The breath of air
the presence
You are not alone. Wait for it—
The prayer rises with the incense:
Be our light in the darkness
deliver us from all perils
and dangers of this night.
Candlelight flickering
Holding back the dark:
This is how we live on the threshold of night.
Jeannette de Beauvoir is a poet and novelist who lives and works at Land’s End—Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in the Emerson Review, the Looking Glass Review, Avalon Literary Review, the Blue Collar Review, Sheepshead Review, On Gaia Literary, Merganser Magazine, the Adirondack Review, Perception, and the New England Review, among others; she was featured in WCAI’s Poetry Sunday, and received the Mary Ballard Chapbook Prize and the Outermost Poetry Contest national award. More at jeannettedebeauvoir.com
Amethyst Review 