Vox Meditantis

Christmas Day, and the fire burns bright. I am an interpreter – a bridge between worlds – and I confess I am proud of it. But wisdom whispers another truth. Today I ask: who tends the flame, and for whom does it burn?

‘Tis the Lord’s Day in the trenches, December’s end, sixteen seventy-one. My hands are clumsy, my cause is just, and the enemy waits beyond the smoke. Here I speak of fear, of holding fast, and of who hath shaped this stubborn heart.

I speak from a failing spring two days before the Nativity. The earth trembles, the water shrinks, and still I wait for what will not come. Or perhaps it will. That is my curse and my consolation both.

In this narrow winter square, beneath watching windows and whispering walls, I weigh my own crooked heart against the tales of travellers and a child’s birth, and ask whether any of us are fit to judge another soul at all.