Song to the Winter Solstice

By the time winter finally came,

we had already endured more dark and cold than we could bear.

So, in a spirit of great festivity, we embraced the solstice and declared it the coming of spring (we knew we were three months early):

we pretended each day was longer and warmer than any that had ever before been.

It became a great age of thaw that dictated our plans and mental states

and rung with a reverberant optimism the likes of which

none had ever before seen.

Though outwardly, the winter days were much the same,

inwardly each ray of sunlight was a miracle heralding a new dawn of possibilities:

to each according to her dreams.

The warmth of the sun on our faces

(though our breath rose white and full of mist)

was an intimate blessing from the divine,

and it showed us how the lives that for so long we had sought in vain were actually everything we’d already had, always, all along.

We wrote poems, we danced, we opened our eyes to each other as mirrors,

and as such, we spoke the truth.

It set us free as geese returning north to celebrate spring.

December 20, 2013

Boulder, CO