Thoughts on Solstices

(x = space)

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Thoughts on Solstices

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I don’t know why the dying year

Is appealing

Maybe because we know

That dying isn’t death

And we contemplate the process

And be glad when the reversal

Starts

Like knowing that our skin cells die

Then are replaced

It is a cycle we can contemplate

As well

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The Earth will start to turn

To favor night,

Which will take six months or so

The zenith with the sun

In the north

Is June

The nadir in December

If we have fires now

(because it’s June),

They will be for celebration

The fires in December

Are made with archetypal fear

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The easy fires will be back

We’ll cook on them

Not worry what they’re

Driving away

(the winter subjects)

And what they attract

Except for insects

That, though they are numerous,

Have cycles so much shorter than

The ones we own

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C L Couch

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Photo by Kenrick Mills on Unsplash

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Lean-To

(x = space)

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Lean-To

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Earth tilts

Unlike pinball

The other way

Then tilts

The other way

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We light fires

To appease

So that the axis

Listens

Turns us back

To growing seasons

x

We’ll have winter

Now

While they have

Summer

The world is made

Of complements

As well as

Paradox

Winter summer,

Equator and the poles

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A world on which

All things hold

That must hold

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Our home

Embraces opposites

In seasons

In tilting one way

Then the other

In value for us all

And each one

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C L Couch

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Sunrise in Iceland 11:19 this morning.

Hafsteinn Robertsson from Hafnarfjordur, Iceland – Winter Solstice, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73751614

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Solstice Properties

(x = space)

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Solstice Properties

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Stonehenge is a solstice

Property,

As is Newgrange,

Machu Pichu,

And anywhere there is

A sacred pointer for

The movement

Of the sun

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Earth will now start

To tip the other way,

Technically; we enter

The winter-half

Of the year

While officially (as we are

official to ourselves),

Summertime has only

Begun

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I guess I’ve

Thought about this

Quandary for a while

And wondered about

Other people’s

Calendars—after all,

Shouldn’t this be the

Halfway point of

Summer?  And do we not

In certain ways and places

Call these days

Midsummer?  The mix

Of math and culture in me

Doesn’t understand

x

But it’s official,

And I hope this is a

Pleasant season for you;

We certainly need one

And the next season

Could be pleasant,

Too, for all our weariness,

For those who have

Persevered

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C L Couch

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Photo by Adrien Aletti on Unsplash

Ottawa, ON, Canada

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Through and Through

(x = space)

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Through and Through

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Francis would say

I think

That God is in the split

Between the seasons

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That God knows

When it happens

And is there

To bless

The ending,

The beginning

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The solstice has passed:

God bless the solstice

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God bless new time

As gift

And chance

To get it right,

To let the garden

Sleep where

In Eden

Seeds of love were sown

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We rest over this

And what may grow,

Some of which

Say half,

Say maybe more,

Is our side of the promise

With the gardeners

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Keepers

Turned farmers outside

And warriors

And slaves

And liberators

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Inventors,

Criminals,

And movement-starters

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So much has happened

In the seasons;

Here’s a season now

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Decide,

Go to it

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C L Couch

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Photo by John Hult on Unsplash

Smedjan, Tollered, Sweden

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Heliopolis

(x = space)

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Heliopolis

(for the solstice)

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The Earth is torn today like

The veil in the temple;

The ground might not move

More than

Mountains explode and

Ice retreats

Anyway,

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These days

In the climes especially

We are half-making,

Maybe more than half

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We still don’t have it right

To count,

Though we’ll more or less find

The moment when the Earth

In contract with the sun

Leans the other way

x

We’d do just as well to consult

Ancient sources

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A new season to begin,

The longer light graduated

Like a cylinder

(remembering the lines

are part of measuring, too)

Or a class of learners

Marked into life

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We try to know:

Julian and Gregory have tried,

And now the atom

(also split)

And the nanosecond try

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But we know

There is a cycle,

And it’s always new

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A new season is born

That will have its dog days,

Some somber days,

Some driven

By some of us on either side

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There are sides now,

We must admit,

Between the foe of nature

And of us

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But we know that

There’s a cycle,

And it’s always new

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C L Couch

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Photo by Ryuichi Itakura on Unsplash

Stonehenge, Amesbury, United Kingdom

Stone Henge

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Uneven Day

 

Uneven Day

(winter solstice)

 

What did Merton say?

I don’t know where I’m going

I don’t know what I’m doing

And Frodo something like

I will take the ring to Mordor

Though I do not know the way

Indecision is a funny thing

Because it doesn’t have to stop us

We can pray

We can wear the ring

As a blessing or an onus (as in probandi)

We can go to Gethsemani

(Kentucky)

Then on to Mordor

 

Tomorrow the day and night are split

Their most unevenly

It won’t be a celebration, then, of symmetry

Rather infinity, for we’ll be wanting

Hoping

 

We’ll want longer days

The chance for life in light

Maybe a bargain,

If we do our part

We’ll say

And many of us mean it

 

How do we move from darkness into light?

Shouldn’t that happen, anyway?

What if we stand still?

Sit in a quiet place

Where we won’t be noticed

Won’t be bothered, either

 

Well, we don’t where we’re going

And we might stay in place

Though ongoing inaction doesn’t plumb

Right in the sounding of our nature

I don’t mean not rest

By all means, rest

But take care for the new year

That for many starts tomorrow

When division is uneven

When balance won’t accomplish much

For months to come

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Kamesh Vedula on Unsplash

Cupertino, United States

 

Solstice 3

Solstice 3

 

Because something smacked the Earth

Billions of years ago,

We lost our axis to ninety degrees

And gained the seasons

 

Everything we sing about

All the agriculture,

The seasons of our labor

The romance of tilting under windmills

(axis upon axis)

 

We have what we have because an alien thing struck

Us

 

Sometimes intrusion

As cosmic intervention

(how would life be without its turns)

Can be wonderful

 

C L Couch

 

Solstice

Solstice
(in the North)

Susserating word
Whispering in frost and crystalline
Syllables, telling us
That the time is changing

Fall is done, and winter’s here
Time for nature’s rest
Sleeping, fallow
Nurtured under blankets
Of the cold

Awaiting what’s to come anew

And those of us in candlelight
With wood fires and electric lamps
LED and Cadmium
We control light and heat
No longer are we partial
To this pace

We plant and reap in this time, too
Instinctively, we have evolved

We figure out our stride, for
Good or ill, while most
Of nature hides