"These are the shortened days and the endless nights."

Carol Ann Duffy, from Mean Time (1993)

Spoken Song, by Liz Lochhead

Gloomy December.

The doldrum days of the dead of winter.

These are the shortest days

and the endless nights.

So wish for the moon

and long for the light.

Chill winds. Relentless rain.

Dark to go to work in, darkness home again.

But, given just one fine day of sun and sharp, clean frost,

our lost, maybe long lost

Faith -- if for nothing more than the year’s turning --

comes back like the light comes back.

A promise in our bleak midwinter yearning

once in a rare and clear blue noon

if we wish for the moon.

Till then, the light’s soul ad spirit

is locked in its absence

and our longing for it.

Whether you believe, with the Magi, in their miracle –

Three Kings bow down low before the Child of Light –

or whether we think them Wise Men on a fool’s errand,

their gifts useless, magnificent, precious,

who came following one star and its faltering gleaming

till they came to the place,

it was a brave as well as a cold coming.

Yes.

And whether it was a refugee waif

or the Saviour that was born,

whether some shepherds on the night-shift

saw angels, or a meteor storm…

Believe in the light’s soul and spirit

that’s in its absence

and our longing for it.

For Tommy Smith, Kurt Elling, the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and their Spirit of Light project, December 2017