Renewal

Daybreak

Draw around, and I will tell you a story, a tale you may not have heard before: the day when morning was broken. It took place in a distant age – when some of you were young, before others were born – in the time of our departed fathers, and a land that now seems far away.

That was that the momentous day, upon which the sun never rose.

Yes, it tried to rise, but it could not surmount the horizon, and was eclipsed, they say, by gravity’s force.

Thus, then the dawn was grey. No colour streaked the sky as the herds were brought for milking, and the nightshift workers puzzled their way home. But the cows gave no milk, and the men made it not to their hearths. The air was empty – no light, or clouds, no birds.  No thrush trilled in the tree and the crooked bush was marked by the robin’s absent warble.  No cock crowed, nor dog barked; no clock struck, nor hammer worked. The distant sea lay like glass. Even the very weather ceased: neither warmth nor cold, the wind muted, chimney smoke hanging still in the air. The Earth, overshadowed, held its breath.

 Bewildered, the people gathered in the square. The elders assembled in the great hall. “How is this?” they asked each other. “Where is our sun, and what is our world?”  In hope but in vain were answers offered up. The astronomers, the sages, the councillors, the teachers and philosophers, the holy men – all deliberated, all hypothesised, each seeking affirmation. Of this, though, there was none. In the end and despite the marshalled wisdom, it was emptiness that filled the space. Nothing was there, and there was nothing.

Night-time came and darkness was restored. They agreed a conclusion: a miracle had been witnessed.

 In humble wonder, then, they nodded to themselves, returned to their cottages, lit their fires, and ate their supper.

 My friends, the next morning at the sixth hour, the sun did rise; and there was light. The breaking sky was adorned in gold and crimson, the air was alert and bursting with birdsong, and the land glowed abundantly with joyful colour. Laden was the breakfast table, and rich, as the parlour clocks chimed.

 All of this was all around, yet of this new day’s dawning was there barely passing remark. The daily grind resumed, unnoticed.

March 2024