Winter Solstice ’11

Approaches

the Winter Solstice approaches and branches are bare,
having given-in to declining light and freezes from the north,
this year’s leaves strewn all about as if to cover the earth
and warm the sleeping roots beneath,

my gaze fixes on my sour cherry tree
and I am struck by potential in its buds
to flower and fruit in the Spring,
such potential well-wrapped and months away from release,
I savor last year’s cherry jam for breakfast
and possibility fitfully sleeps in the sap,

I keep calling up Spring’s flowers past,
when the cocoa-brown of fallen leaf and patient earth
release what then was hidden
and will again withdraw when it is time,

now it’s the moss whose burgeoning vibrant green enjoys the Sun
as recent rain swells it and the creek,








the dead hemlock are decked with bracket fungi as if for Christmas,








evergreens remind us that what was will be again,

for now truth is bare and yet full of possibility,

as demands of work and home drop off into vacation,
inside me it’s as if wound-up spring after spring,
wound tight with effort and anxiousness,
feverishly spin thoughts and feelings this way and that,
like Christmas toys run amok,
as each claims a time from me to deal
with pain & fear & loss, & all the lists
which have not yet finished with me,

we celebrate light when it is dark,
bounty when pickings are least,
and letting-go when we know how much we will soon need
to grab back hold again,
for who we are cannot sleep through Winter.

December 18, ’11

Winter Solstice & Mood

the dark holds sway,
the light hides behind land to the south,
and behind clouds many days
as grey heavily mixes with the black,

December winds the year down
and its natural mood broods,
so what do we do?
we splurge with lights & food & gifts
as if to deny the rightness of giving-in
to the darkness in any way,
so within ourselves a conflict starks itself
and we deny harshness and its time so much
our joy can shallow out instead of deepen,

the fast needs a time now to share with the feast,
the tear to be along with the laugh,
the journey in to balance the journey out.

December 21, ’11


Winter Solstice Morning

the Caribbean honors the change of season
and sends us wave after wave of warm wet air,
mistying the mountains with courses of cloud and fog,
soon after science tells us the sun stops its retreat south,
I meditate in the dark woods,
and, above me, the Big Dipper eases out of the hazy air
and points to the north star,
as if to guide the sun to return,
all around me the trunks of bare trees are black fingers
pointing up into a grey sky, black and brooding,
then blocking the stars anew,

other shapes and colors slowly return,
and we pack up and head back home,
on the way enough light and view reveal themselves to awe us
as we see bright bare trees and earth, the canvas upon which
spring, then summer, then fall
will each have their own turn to give us wonder,

now is the time for the palette to be cleansed.

by Henry Walker
December 22, ’11