Centuries of Dance
So the shortest day came and the Year died.
And everywhere, down the long white Centuries of Snow
came people dancing, singing
to drive the Dark away.
They lighted candles in the Winter trees.
They hung their homes with evergreens.
They burned beseeching fires
all night long to keep the year alive
And when the new day Sun blazed awake,
They shouted, revelling.
Though all across the ages you can hear them.
Listen, echoing behind them,
all the long echoes
sing the same delight this shortest day
as Promise awakens in the sleeping land.
They carol peace, give thanks,
and dearly love their friend
and hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This Year and every Year.
I don't know the provenance of the poem/carol. The Revellers, out of Boston sing it in their concerts/recordings. And I took it from them ...errors/changes are mine...but the message remains the same, on this the shortest day of 1996; on this the begining of ever lightening days, I wish all my good colleagues on the left ever-green success in our long white centuries of work for peace and justice for all our friends and all our neighbors in all the lands in which we work.
As Carl Sagan said, before he died, one can feel a sense of awe, and wonderment at the incredible complexities of life and nature without god-talk or exclusionary religious politics. And so can we, what-ever our religious sensibilities.
TR Young