This week’s poem in the Catholic Poetry Room is by Thomas Lequin.                                                                                                                                         

December Snowstorm

I search the cellar
this late winter afternoon,
looking for candles, flashlights,
batteries and lanterns.

Successful, I come upstairs
to a darkening day though
white, almost two
feet of you.

Yard and driveway are plowed,
doorways shoveled,
and the wood stove gives its heat.
There is no light at 5 pm,
save for my little candle.

CMP gives no information of
when the power will return—
they are as much in the dark
as I am, maybe more.

The Christophers say
it is better to light just one
little candle than to curse
the darkness of the night.

I pray with them and do
as they say.


Thomas Lequin is a Catholic priest who lives in Maine. He is also a farmer, hunter, fisherman, Maine Master Guide and writer. Some of his stories and poems have appeared in Chiron Review, Plough, the Anglican Theological Review, Presence and other journals and anthologies.

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