winter solstice It is the solstice: the long dark the sharp needle of frost the hanging pause. We are suspended in the nadir of the swing. Somewhere in the heavy dark a bristlecone branch creaks grass edged with lacy white shivers an icicle falls, shatters, clinks faintly of glass an impossibly perfect snowflake floats down down down. We turn inward, wrapped in flimsy husks. Shadows creep up the old walls find the same marks pause our breath catches and then one tiniest of turns imperceptible the slightest groaning shift and here comes the light waking the bristlecone's sap undressing the grass smoothing ice to pool rounding the snowflake's points. Our eyes twinkle in the light. Now the days are getting longer. Oh for more days more long, long days days to fill just how we choose. Put some sunbeams in that one some cool sand and rough wave some raw cello and some tears you can't stop because your belly's full of laughter and here, take this hawk sitting just overhead, showing you his sharp hooked point of a tearing beak, calmly contemplating you below, make sure you save some room for him. So many wonders and treasures to find a place for a time for a day for and soon the sunrise will fire the sky past the telephone wires just a little earlier and already the pink clouds of evening unfurl under the caught branches across the street just a little later and tomorrow you and I we will be blessed with a few more moments of waking a few more glorious instants of presence. |