Tag: solstice

What Cannot Be Defied

sunlight pouring into the inner chamber of Newgrange

Apples ripened and acorns fell early,

confusing madcap squirrels.

Girls wore sundresses in November,

and the pedicurist polished

toes to peep out of sandals.

Where were the umbrellas and wool sweaters?

Our customary summer drought

lingered past its welcome;

even the rosemary and echevaria thirsted.

But beyond our fevered planet’s ripped cocoon,

the stars still proceed in their stately course.

We may defy gravity,

but the law itself remains unbroken.

Our earth continues to orbit the sun

at the same tilt,

and the days grow shorter.

At dawn on the winter solstice

sunlight will pour down the ancient stone passage

just as it did five thousand years ago.

Oh, praise the light that is beyond our reach!

Solstice Fire

Long days and sultry nights

leach all reason

from my sleep-starved

flesh-enmeshed spirit

drunk on light and heat

then hungover

and with me a whole hemisphere

besotted and whirling.

Here at the edge of the sea 

the fog will float in soon 

and for all of us eventually

the soft quilt of darkness

but today and always

the cave of your heart

is lit with God-fire.

Feel it flow

through your veins.

Burn —

as only you know how.

Inspired by Linda Serrato’s poem “On This Morning” in Sacred Stone,  Sacred Water: Women Writers & Artists Encounter Ireland.

Summer Solstice 2017

IMG_3820

After the long winter of seed-soaking rains
when the driest taproots drank their fill,
the privet and the bougainvillea
revel in inebriation,
besotted roses plaster their vines with blooms,
and even the stately redwood indulges
in tipsy explosions of baby green at every needle tip.
Now comes a feast of light
for the leafy exuberant ones.
Deep in their cells they remember
the way they thirsted in the drought,
but this memory is just a gilt edge
on the solstice invitation to summer.

The prodigal stretched-out days ask,
how big is your we?
Does it include
this velvet yellow petal,
an extraterrestrial guava blossom,
the courtly redwood?
Oh come, my darling,
it’s the summer solstice –
lift your glass to the light,
and dance with the whole shimmering forest!

Winter Solstice 2016

labyrinth by the ocean

One hundred steps to the center of the labyrinth,

and light enters the world as gently

as the pilgrim making her way to the center.

Can you tell the moment when the foxtail

takes shape out of the night

and the pine needles assume their points?

In the pause between

breathing out

and breathing in,

the last star fades into the brightening sky,

gone to the place you journey in your sleep.

 

I watch my thoughts dart off

like a startled flock of sparrows

in twenty directions.

I have written ten thousand words

that don’t mean a thing.

Now the solstice calls me to the labyrinth,

and my feet long for the one hundred steps.