Friday, December 23, 2011

We Danced and Sang and Laughed About the Happy Times to come: Toward the Winter Solstice - Reprise

From Toward the Winter Solstice, by Timothy Steele:


Some wonder if the star of Bethlehem
Occurred when Jupiter and Saturn crossed;
It’s comforting to look up from this roof
And feel that, while all changes, nothing’s lost,
To recollect that in antiquity
The winter solstice fell in Capricorn
And that, in the Orion Nebula,
From swirling gas, new stars are being born.


* * *
From Solstice, by Judy Ann:


dawn creeps in
crystal clear
intrepid
yet
wary


endings
become
beginnings


savor this juncture
for the road ahead
is long
and arduous


but in this moment
all things
are possible


* * *
From Wintersong, a Solstice Poem, by William Aster:


...Somewhere though within their midst
I see the brightness of a far-off fire,
one filled with power but contained, restrained
inside the circle etched out on the grass,
inside the darkness of that woodland.


I can make out shadows round that fire
of dancers, silhouetted revelers,
and I can hear the sound of pipes and drums
and laughter, and giddy conversation
covering those winter sprites like snow.


It's that time of year you know, the solstice,
when the constant cold, the ever-present fact
of sacrifice prompts the finer blossoms
of the human spirit to bloom and show
their beauty.


Long ago, long, long ago,
before the ignominy of the cross,
long before the hostile takeover
of this bone-chilling time of human need,
we celebrated


the year's smallest day
like the babe it was,
and as birth should be greeted
we danced and sang and laughed about
the happy times to come.


The forest was where we met
and mated and made our stand,
and maybe where we'll make our stand
again, to get through this time
of sorrow,
this time of too much
of what we do not need,
and not enough of what's essential:
water that is good to drink,
and air that's clean to breathe,


and forestland to walk inside,
safe places for spirits
of long-ago ancestors to rest,
bark for them to wear
in winter


until they choose to shed it,
choose to rejoin us
in our moonlit revels
round the fire
that is older than humanity --


There's a bonfire up there
in those woods, a winter fire
that might warm us in these times
of dark, and keep our faces pink
and smiling,


until the far-off southern sun returns
to shine again upon our constant sea...