The light returns in fractions—
a minute portioned back today, another
tomorrow. I keep the count,
though clouds obscure the evidence:
three minutes banked by New Year’s,
another half-minute folded in,
five more by Epiphany.
The cold arrives in earnest now:
lake effect, the wind that finds
every weakness in the house’s skin.
But the light grows. The sun
keeps its promise without display,
deposits made, retained, compounded.
I watch for five fifteen, for when
darkness once took the day entire.
Now it hesitates. Now it waits.
February measures what accumulates:
an hour restored, perhaps more.
Afternoon lengthens itself,
light touching the sun room wall
at angles I had forgotten. Still
the snow, still the grey insistence
of overcast—but something
fundamental has shifted.
The sun climbs higher, stays longer,
asks nothing in return. This is not
spring—spring lies, breaks its word
too often to be trusted. This is
mathematics, planetary tilt,
the faithful working of the world’s
ancient machinery.
I am owed nothing.
I receive these minutes anyway.
March brings the balance: day and night
held even, aequinoctium.
The light has kept its promise
minute by minute, fraction
by fraction, until the ledger clears.
Not triumph—the cold can still
return, and will—but equipoise:
that moment of level standing
before the light tips into majority.
I have done nothing to earn this
except continue, except persist
through diminishment, watching
the slow reversal, the patient return.
The light grows still.
The light keeps growing.
The promise is not finished.
Northcoast Antiquarian 