WINTER SOLSTICE


When at the end of a long black night
The remote pale sun seems barely able
To reanimate the lazy crystal flicks
Of air beginning to fall out of air

When at the end of the brief blue day
The last lilac light glancing cold off the snow
Is so lovely it makes the heart ache
The way it makes the fingers and toes ache

In all this we can sense if not see
Earth's ponderously stupid tangential urge
To be free from the sun's imposition of order

And in this centrifugal surge we can only pray
That the sun will hold on, reassert order, that our sun
Still wants us, as much as we need our sun.

SUMMER SOLSTICE


On the day when the sun lingers longest
We want to linger with it, don't want to think
Of the sweet slow retreat of the blessed light,
The aspen's capture in leaves of the leaving light,
The slowing pulse of life, the growth of night
That will lead to the distant short day when
Our prayers and fires are needed to turn again
The earth back toward the light, back from the night,
Back to the slush and flush of life resurgent, back
To this day when the sun lingers longest.


— George Sibley 2005 ©