Solstice

Season of the sun in its southern apogee,

days of opposites, of compensation.

Jingles bells and silent night,

while cash registers ring themselves

out of the red,

skeletal sycamore outside the window

in its requiem mass.

Spruce, lit and tinseled inside.

Hallelujah.

The glitz we insist upon

to propitiate the gods

against the dying of the light.

We gift wrap our eyes.

The fabled baby is born

within the manger of bulbs

on the wild desert floor.

Deck the halls to urge the sun.

Sondheim is still, here no more,

gone into his woods

dark and deep, no menorah

to answer the solstice.

 

Only by great exertion can those

in the hemisphere below  

take our myth as theirs,

take on candles or White Christmas

dancing through the snow

in a one-horse heat of December summer

just like the ones they never knew.

 

As in the cycle of my life

I too take on a mind of winter,

barren on my inscape,

to hush the clamor.

Then overthrow the bonds,

ignite the fuse and rouse

the buds to burst.