The Edge of Christmas

If it were always winter but never Christmas,
the dark might encircle and engulf the light
shrinking the world in on itself as the Solstice approaches.
But December mists exhale an alchemy,
bright as electricity.

Sunlight shimmers in showers of stars,
on glass, on windows, or on walls.
Cascades of colour, waterfalls of sparks,
fizzing and sparkling in rainbow colours
like Christmas champagne.
Glistening and gleaming in woods and gardens,
frost-stars coruscate upon the velvet foliage of winter plants,
and flash upon the surface of the frozen lake,
scratched and scarred by the tracks of creatures.
And silver fish swim beneath the ice.
Frosted felled forests of Christmas trees glimmer with water droplets,
as if they already had lights.
At twilight, red and gold precedes the darkness,
as anticipation colours a landscape
on the edge of Christmas.