The Solstice is upon us. Here we have the shortest day and longest night, and in the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite. It is another opportunity to remember humility as we are such a small part of the cosmic dance. A time for reflection of changes and anticipation of a new more hopeful year. May we find our place of strength and wholeness.

I include the poems (the second one is a chant) that were used in the Winter Solstice program on Thursday night shown on our in-house TV channel. I was humbled to be a small part of an hour long sharing of Kendal residents who recited poetry, sang songs, played a piano, clarinet, viola trio, a harpsichord piece, clarinet duets, string ensembles, all on the theme of darkness into light conceived and narrated by our talented Master of Ceremonies. The audio visual man became a videographer, elegantly blending all of these prerecorded contributions into an elegant whole using Rebecca Cordozo’s nature slides as they emerged and faded while we listened,

Beauteous Dark

I crave the dark

my gaze slides inward

beneath the fluttering curtains of day

oceans of sound cease

to pour into my seashell ears

my powers of speech

lie nestled within my sheltering jaw

In that beauteous dark

my breath expands

a small sliver of a new moon

curves its way between my lips

I am

constant as the moon

appearing and disappearing

waxing and waning

silently reflecting the light

I draw SO CLOSE

That my gravity alone

changes the tides on Earth

In the Dark Before the Dawn

In the dark

before the dawn

when I’m wandering all alone

may I search for

may I find

a light to guide me home

hold to that light

through the long night

until my eyes

bless the sunrise

In the dark

before the dawn

when we’re wandering 

all alone

may we search for

may we find

a light to guide us home

hold to that light

through the long night

until our eyes

bless the sunrise

Morning After Winter Solstice

The silent dawn

may be draped in snow

sunstruck into crystalline radiance

leaving tracks of those who

walked

before us

If I could paint

I would brush the snow

a gray shade of lavender

beneath the trees

blue behind the buildings

gold in the clearing

If I could sing

I would give voice to arias

of slender winter birds

icing over the ponds

the cushioning crunch of snow

beneath my boots

If I could write as simply as the

four-leggeds

the muskrat journal would read,

“I slide down the bank into cold waters”

or in squirrel script,

“I leapt here onto the tree before you”

or in deer tongue,

“We grazed branch tips before moving

on”

I would paint and sing and write

I am here

I breathe

I smell

I see

I listen

I taste

I touch the dawn

Ah!