Closer now to winter

a poem for Advent

First Advent Sunday 

Inexplicably, the scent of jasmine 
threads the night air. Cold air. 
Closer now to winter than the depths of fall.
Nothing’s in bloom but a dumpster
overflowing, and a few chimneys—
it must be the woodsmoke that thins 
into imagined jasmine. Walking home, 
streetlights dim, I see as far as I can think. 
And here the season begins, in the dark, 
waiting for the Word to emerge
like the amber glow 
in a window at the end of the road.