Winter Solstice 2020

Like so many events and festivities, this year I celebrated the Solstice virtually with friends. Instead of circling around a fire, we sat around our glowing screens.

Joining me to mark the shortest day were Irene, Wendy, Laura, Nicki, Grace, and Chris.

We enjoyed our food and then toasted the season, lifting our spirits. There was ouzo, Roku gin, Matcha gin fizz, sherry, Irish cream liqueur...

And poetry!! Illuminating, sad, brooding, humorous. 

I came across the poem the Shortest Day by Susan Cooper and was delighted by the illustrations of Carson Ellis for the children's book of the same name. It so magically catches the essence of darkening days and the importance of carolling and feasting and giving thanks. This year, so important.

All the illustrations in this post are from that book. Laura shared the illustrator Carson Ellis is married to Colin Meloy, the lead singer of one of her favourite bands, The Decemberists. Enjoying their songs as I put together this post.

Poems follow.........

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us—listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome, Yule!

_____________

from Laura....

To Know the Dark, by Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light
To know the dark, go dark
Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
And is travelled by dark feet and dark wings

____________

from Nicki

Good Bones, by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

... more on the poem and its 

origin

___________

from Irene...

Vapour Trails by Richard Searsbrook 

1

Follow the scent

of cherry-blossom-incense

over terraced fields

with ankles caked in muck

eat rice, drink pungent tea

from cupped hands, outstretched arms

follow a trail of bone-white dust

where the blossoms scent grows stronger

than memory

than imagination

through the arched gateway

believe that you hear

every voice of China

singing through the silent haze

inhale the sweet summoning mist

inhale and hold

within arms' reach

a girl in golden robes

you know that you love her

even before she turns around

with an incense-burning lantern

held in her small hands

_____________

from Wendy.....

Lovely Hand, by Anonymous

Last night I held a lovely hand,
It was so small and neat,
I thought my heart with joy would burst
So wild was every beat.

No other hand unto my heart
Could greater pleasure bring
Than the one so dear I held last night.
Four Aces and a King

________________

from Grace

Ode to a Cat, by Pablo Neruda

El gato, sólo el gato apareció completo y orgulloso: nació completamente terminado, camina solo y sabe lo que quiere.
no hai unidad como él, no tienen la luna ni la flor tal contextura: es una sola cosa como el sol o el topacio ,
y la elástica línea en su contorno firme y sutil es como la línea de la proa de una nave.
Sus ojos amarillos dejaron una sola ranura para echar las monedas de la noche.

The cat, only the cat turned out finished, and proud:
Born in a state of total completion, it sticks to itself and knows exactly what it wants.
Nothing hangs together quite like a cat: neither flowers nor the moon have such consistency.
It's a thing by itself, like the sun or a topaz, and the elastic curve of its back, which is both subtle and confident, is like the curve of a sailing ship's prow.
The cat's yellow eyes are the only slot for depositing the coins of night.

... Pablo Neruda : Ode To The Cat

_______________________

from Chris, some lines from 

Tam O'Shanter by Robert Burns

But pleasures are like poppies spread:
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow fall on the river,
A moment white - then melts forever,
Or like the Aurora Borealis rays,
That move before you can point to their place;
Or like the rainbow’s lovely form,
Vanishing amid the storm.
No man can tether time or tide,
The hour approaches Tom must ride:
That hour, of night’s black arch - the key-stone,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in
And such a night he takes to the road in
As never a poor sinner had been out in.

...the complete version