Promise Obscured

Barren trees and frozen ground, interlacing grays and browns surrounding.
Dormancy with hidden promise, not yet expectation. Too early for swelling buds or coloring twigs. The coldest and deepest sleep is yet to come.
Silence.
Then... tapping, rattling, rustling debris falling from above, curtain of brown powder against the winter sky and branches. Life, after all.

Leaden sky, lifeless amber stalks as far as the eye can see. Low tide, expanse of mud and muck mostly, uncompromising honesty of what is, at the bottom of the marsh.
No illusions of abundance nor reflections of fullness, here.
Instead, crusted icy tributaries, like the tentacles of God winding through this
broken and unsuspecting world,
snake through the mire, unappreciated life-source.

Standing still, unmoving, unnoticed behind dried rushes
in the pale light.
A grey lump, inanimate, dead-stump like, invisible
until a single ray of sunlight reflects back from the white in his face and the gleam in his eye.
Suddenly there. Suddenly, "Oh, of course! How could I not see him,"
even as the sun retreats and he is returned to obscurity.
Sureness questioned...Alive, nonetheless.

Advent.