Tuesday, December 24, 2019

dark is mostest




Winter Solstice ‘19

“Winter Solstice, Winter Solstice
Light is little, Dark is mostest.”

we chant this as the Sun approaches noon,
and the shadow of our Sol Pole
reaches furtherest away from its base,
the furthest it will ever get in the year,








































this is the time for dark to wrap around us,
a time to measure the light even more,
for it feels lesser, and us the poorer,
the tree, and the menorah, and hope, call to us,

morning dawns late, and gray today,
the Sun can’t break through the clouds all day,



so there are no bright shafts of light
to contrast with the long hours of darkness,
the forest we walk through is littered 
with the wreckage of countless trees,
burned or weakened by the Great Fire,
and roared down upon forest floor and trail
by vengeful winds attempting to restore equilibrium
to an atmosphere heated by our lives and by our waste,
all this downage fodder for ubiquitous fungi,
those gods of recycling,



a kingfisher raucously calls,
and owns me with his assertions,

as dusk falls, I sit by the full, beautiful creek,



broken trees sculptured around me,



















I look up into the gray sky,
through black fingers of bare beech branch,



and I see a large bird flying north, down the valley,
a magnificent heron pulls me with her through the sky,
her neck and head thin and true as an arrow,

I feel the world is a dance,
magnificent to watch,
but in a language
my words can only touch but never hold.


by Henry H. Walker
December 21, ‘19

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