On this third Monday of Advent, a poem by one of my favorite writers, Louise Glück.

Winter can tempt us to despair. Cold, death, endless waiting. It is easy to stop believing in spring.

He did tell us how it would be. “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies,” he said. And he was right. The seeds of resurrection were planted in these dark days before Christmas.

Even our winters are redeemed.

                    Snowdrops

          Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know

          what despair is; then

          winter should have meaning for you.

          I did not expect to survive,

          earth suppressing me. I didn’t expect

          to waken again, to feel

          in damp earth my body

          able to respond again, remembering

          after so long how to open again

          in the cold light

          of earliest spring –

          afraid, yes, but among you again

          crying yes risk joy

          in the raw wind of the new world.

                    – Louise Glück