Musings: A Column on Local Culture
In Advent
Swamspcott poet M.W. MacKay speaks to the season.
Living as we do at the extreme edge of the Eastern Standard Time Zone is to experience wide swings of daylight; in July barbecues can last until after 8 pm, and now, in December, at 4 pm, we are ready to put on our pajamas for the evening, even if we are still at work. And so, we compensate, with electric lights to illuminate the darkness. In Advent, a poem from M.W. MacKay’s collection, Hope runs through it, acknowledges this collective longing for more light, and wonders about how we try to make up for the lack of illumination. She writes: I hunger for light. Not the junk-food bright glare that blazes from malls and screams back the dark with extended Holiday hours. She goes on to ask whether all this over-brightness is somehow missing …
