This is as dark as it gets.
This is true,
true dark.
This is as dark as it gets,
says the earth to the spirit.
Don’t look up, yet, for there is nothing to see.
Rush, if you must.
Push your heels
against the spinning ball
if you think it will help
either of you on your way.
But this is as dark as it gets.
This is the birth of maybe
from the bowels of never again.
Don’t look up, yet, for there is nothing
to see.
This is as dark as it gets.
This is the empty undying, holding all of the moments
to come.
Rev. Bob Janis 
Dear Bob,
Thank you for your insightful poem. Although Christmas has many roots, I have always seen the lights, trees in the houses, “happiest time of the year” as a reaction-formation against the “true, true dark.”
Here is, in exchange, one of my recent poems, which I will send separately, owning to my uncertainty about attachments on my iPad.
I wish you well in your time in the black dark.
Jim
Sent from my iPad