Marianne Stokes, "Candlemas Day", 1901
Advent I turn to my favourite poets. Even those poems I know by heart, shed light into the duller recesses of routine, and illumine the dark corners that threaten hope. Candlemas is the other side of Advent, but Levertov's poem, in three short sentences, contrasts the certitude of faith with the realities of cross, tomb and darkness.
Candlemas
With certitude
Simeon opened
ancient arms
to infant light.
Decades
before the cross, the tomb
and the new life,
he knew
new life.
What depth
of faith he drew on,
turning illumined
towards deep night.
Denise Levertov
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