Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour by Wallace Stevens

 [The following was originally published one year ago today. Pete was heartened to receive a number of wonderful e-mails, texts, and phone messages in response to this piece. I thought it would be a nice idea to run it again. Like Pete says, "You go with a winner!" Merry Christmas to all, and to all have a good night.]

Light the first light of evening, as in a room
In which we rest and, for small reason, think
The world imagined is the ultimate good.

This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous. 
It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,
Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:

Within a single thing, a single shawl
Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth, 
A light, a power, the miraculous influence.

Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole, 
A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.

Within its vital boundary, in the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one... 
How high that highest candle lights the dark.

Out of this same light, out of the central mind, 
We make a dwelling in the evening air, 
In which being there together is enough.

To all of my friends and those you love on this Christmas Eve,

May the candle's light fill your home this evening and every evening, and the heat of its flame keep you warm...and may being together always be enough.

Merry Christmas!
Peter