Winter Solstice

Sun rising late,
over the hill road
at daybreak,
time bends itself like this
among my own mountains
under the sagging year.

Moon-rise
waxes gibbous
with its skeptic’s face
half-hidden by heathland;
too many dark hours persist
between dusk and daybreak
for the soul to thaw out
or the eyes to see
anything but time
and bitter cold.

This year

snow did not fall.

In the shortening days,
it may never fall again
if winter steals summer’s ransom;
no matter how dark the darkness
frost can no longer cut
the spirit’s weakness
nor harden it
to an edge.

There is a turning 

in the late hours after sunset,
this evening, as the planet, at last,
heaves herself back toward tomorrow,
begins the days’ slow lengthening
into spring and summer,
here, in the north.

Much later,

in the forest,
trees must find a way
to lift green to the sky again
and one day unfold its season
in the open heart of the year.

For now, the promise of it
is not enough.

© Brian Hill

Winter solstice: 'Summer is on its way'

Brian Hill. 50 years a poet. One-time designer and film-maker; long ago, the rhyme-slinger, cartoon cowboy, and planetarium poet; now feverishly stringing words together in the hope of making sense.

Brian blogs as Scumdadio (don’t ask).