Malcolm Guite has given us a sonnet to turn our remembrance to the origin and meaning of Hallowe’en, and to the saints, known and unknown, those “steady lights undimmed” who are commemorated in the next days. If you go to his site, “Malcolm Guite,” you can read a little related history, and hear him reading his own poem. It’s worth a click.
ALL SAINTS
Though Satan breaks our dark glass into shards
Each shard still shines with Christ’s reflected light,
It glances from the eyes, kindles the words
Of all his unknown saints. The dark is bright
With quiet lives and steady lights undimmed,
The witness of the ones we shunned and shamed.
Plain in our sight and far beyond our seeing
He weaves them with us in the web of being
They stand beside us even as we grieve,
The lone and left behind whom no one claimed,
Unnumbered multitudes, he lifts above
The shadow of the gibbet and the grave,
To triumph where all saints are known and named;
The gathered glories of His wounded love.
-Malcolm Guite
Gladsome Lights 