Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Winter Solstice '18




Winter Solstice ‘18

bands of rain,
bands of sun,
ride the warm air from the Gulf,
just before noon, and just after noon,
sun shadows at the Sol Pole,
but at noon itself tumbling gray clouds block the Sun,



she who just today pauses,
before starting her long six month climb to summer,
as we drive across the piedmont and then into the mountains,
the air cools and the steady rain
threatens to turn into snow,
which it does up-elevation from us,
the phase change an echo of the season change,
winter white just a few degrees and a few hundred feet from us,
water along here usually drips by the road,
today it streams,
and in the valleys the streams are full and loud,

















a gray dusk turns into night
just as the Sun pauses,
family travel today so that we can be together,
sister-in-law, niece, tonight,
sons and spouses and grandchildren 
are to wend their way tomorrow
into these mountains and to this family home,
we need to notice time passing
and to feel ourselves fully present,
as yesterday becomes tomorrow,
and today, like every one of us,
needs to be noticed,
needs to be appreciated,
all of us, all of existence, needs to be savored,
for too soon the moment is gone,
for too soon each of us will be gone, too,
at the fulling table I feel the absences
of those who were here, and now aren’t.

by Henry H. Walker
December 21, ‘18

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