The Moon Before Yule

I rise, bringing the gift of natural light to the city. High above the chimney pots, department stores and roads, I turn my gaze upon them. I observe their preparations, despair that they name this ritual harm ‘festivities.’ My eyes smart from the twinkling of a billion light bulbs, big and small, that adorn buildings, facsimiles of trees, and something they call Christmas jumpers. In the chill air, they forget too easily the forest fires and floods of their making. The memory of summer’s scorch is ignored in favour of log burners. Some sing of ancient journeys and a birth. Nine lessons and carols by candlelight fade quicker than a guttering flame. I see the promise of peace take flight again, despite the knowledge that it will crash to earth in the hard new year. I weep for them. My tears provide sad silver prey for Orion the Hunter.

*

Tracey Pearson is a poet and flash fiction writer from Newcastle upon Tyne. Her writing has appeared online, in magazines such as Poetry Wales, and various anthologies. Tracey won a Bread and Roses Poetry Award in 2022. In 2023 she was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in flash fiction, and the Oluwale Poetry Competition. Tracey’s shortlisted poem appears in the Oluwale Now anthology published by Peepal Tree Press.