the solace of solstice

It’s snowing again, still. Wednesday and Thursday we’re forecast to get another six+ inches. It all looks pretty and Christmassy, except on the roads and sidewalks and driveways etc. While I was out running errands today I saw several highway plows doing cleanup along the shoulders. I suppose all this weather makes sense, since winter solstice is the day after tomorrow and then... only 89 days until spring equinox.

With luck, the snow will have ended in plenty of time for highway crews to get the roads clear so everyone can get where they’re going at Christmas. I do believe it’s going to preempt my plans for a solstice “bonfire” in the fire pit along the driveway, but I just noticed the forecast is still changing so we can live in hope.

winter solstice “bonfire"

Photo by J. Harrington

In fact, that may be what this season is really all about, hope: that we all make it through the winter; that next year is better than the one just passed; that the sun will return higher in the sky; that the community will thrive; that good will will prevail and winter won’t be too harsh; that all the things that could go wrong, don’t; that our guardian angels don’t get overworked and our offspring grow up to be good people.

In my drive today, I traveled roads I’ve not driven for some time. The countryside looks very different blanketed in white. Once again I realized that, even though it’s not my place of origin, the St. Croix valley has its own beauty and I’m lucky to be able to live in such a special place.

Dead Stars

Ada Limón - 1976-

Out here, there’s a bowing even the trees are doing.
                 Winter’s icy hand at the back of all of us.
Black bark, slick yellow leaves, a kind of stillness that feels
so mute it’s almost in another year.

I am a hearth of spiders these days: a nest of trying.

We point out the stars that make Orion as we take out
       the trash, the rolling containers a song of suburban thunder.

It’s almost romantic as we adjust the waxy blue
       recycling bin until you say, Man, we should really learn
some new constellations.

And it’s true. We keep forgetting about Antlia, Centaurus,
       Draco, Lacerta, Hydra, Lyra, Lynx.

But mostly we’re forgetting we’re dead stars too, my mouth is full
       of dust and I wish to reclaim the rising—

to lean in the spotlight of streetlight with you, toward
       what’s larger within us, toward how we were born.

Look, we are not unspectacular things.
       We’ve come this far, survived this much. What

would happen if we decided to survive more? To love harder?

What if we stood up with our synapses and flesh and said, No.
     No, to the rising tides.

Stood for the many mute mouths of the sea, of the land?

What would happen if we used our bodies to bargain

for the safety of others, for earth,
                 if we declared a clean night, if we stopped being terrified,

if we launched our demands into the sky, made ourselves so big
people could point to us with the arrows they make in their minds,

rolling their trash bins out, after all of this is over?

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.