In a vast field of frozen dark-gray slate,
a luminous pearlescence blooms
above a slow horizon in the southern sky,
this silent dawn near solstice.
Moments of enchantment pass before the mind remembers:
this is the sun, rising in the south.
The wakening mind expands: the sun is not rising –
this is my self, spinning and tilting so far north,
so far from communion with my home star,
I’ve strayed beyond familiar relations.
This is no small thought for a heliotrope,
whose life is relative to the source of heat and power.
An ancient dread arises: the light is going out, forever.
Fending off enveloping night and its creatures,
fires have always been lit.
Eventually tales are told around those fires to capture the fear,
hold it safely in place,
sooth the wariness of not seeing.
Knowing we’re spinning and tilting
among quintillions of suns
sparks a quiet liveliness in the blackness of winter.
At peace, in this, tenderness flares up for civilization’s mimicry of heavenly fires,
stoked in strings of tinted bulbs.
These tiny wire-borne suns harmonize with flickering burning woods in
other worlds, primordial fires,
the sacrifice of trees,
the telling of tales, the lighting of faces in the void.
Photo Credit: Grethe Boe via stockxchange