Poetry Friday: light the darkest night

 

 

Poetry Friday is here and now, on the Winter Solstice, when the sun stands briefly still at its lowest point on the horizon.  All day shadows are long, and the night, when it comes, is the longest night of the year.  But take heart, diurnal creatures:  poetry has the power to light the dark! 

 

Susan Cooper (yes, that Susan Cooper, of the The Dark Is Rising series) leads the procession of those who call the sun to return.

 

The Shortest Day | 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, revelling.

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!

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A couple of folks who don't blog sent me poems to light the dark ahead of time.  This one, by the woods-whisperer Joyce Sidman, reminds us that furred and feathered creatures also eat and drink of the light.

 

Winter Solstice, At the Feeder | Joyce Sidman

In your burrows under the snow

all you will hear

is the dry swirl of frozen breath,

the rasp of bare limbs,

the slow stamp of some large creature. 

On this coldest of mornings,

when all is either stone or dust
and the shadows reach blue fingers

into the splintered air,

I am planting flowers of the sun. 

Each seed drops into the powder,

a striped case holding its secret map

of burning velvet yellow.

Can you smell it, this promise,

this nugget of unconsumed heat? 

I can see by your footprints

that you have been here before.

Pheasant hen, finch and mouse:

when I am gone, come and eat.

Turn your faces toward the light. 
 

from Like the Air, Finishing Line Press, 1999.  Reprinted with permission.

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Another echo, unclad of the mists of time, came to my inbox via the Academy of American Poets.  In it, Jake Adam York (go to the obituary of this suddenly, recently departed poet to wish for More Time) addresses not the literal sun, but a musician who knew himself to be of the "Angel Race" of Saturn. Reading this poem, I felt the longing many of us have, as we rush around the shopping malls and freeway interchanges, to connect with the ebb and flow of the cosmos.  To see, "To get it dark enough," we "have to fold back/into the hills, into the trees."

Letter Already Broadcast into Space | Jake Adam York

                         -To Sun Ra, from Earth

You are not here,

you are not here
in Birmingham,
        where they keep your name,

not in Elmwood's famous plots
                or the monuments
of bronze or steel or the strew

        of change in the fountain
where the firehoses sprayed.

                In the furnaces, in the interchange sprawl
        that covers Tuxedo Junction,

in the shopping malls, I think,
                they've forgotten you,

the broadcast towers, the barbecues,

        the statue of the Roman god,
spiculum blotting out
                part of the stars.

To get it dark enough,
        I have to fold back
into the hills, into the trees

                where my parents
planted me, where the TV
        barely reaches and I drift

with my hand on the dial
                of my father's radio,

spinning, too, the tall antenna
        he raised above the pines.

I have to stand at the base

                of the galvanized
pole I can use as an azimuth
        and plot you in.

The hunter's belt is slung again,
                and you are there

in the pulse, in the light of
        Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka,

all your different names,

                you are there
in all the rearrangements
        of the stars.

                        Come down now,
come down again,

                like the late fall light
into the mounds along the creek,

        light that soaks like a flood
to show the Cherokee sitting upright
                underground, light

like the fire they imply.

        Come down now
into the crease the freight train
                hits like a piano's hammer

and make the granite hum
        beneath.

                        Come down now

as my hand slips from the dial,
                tired again of looking
for the sound of another way

        to say everything.

Come down now with your diction
                and your dictionary.

Come down, Uncle, come down
        and help me rise.

I have forgot my wings.

 

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Some remember their wings through a rather famous book of poetry.  This piece is contributed by my father, a Lutheran pastor.  The poet is John (yes, that John, of the New Testament).

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth."

 

Gospel of John, selected verses 1-14

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And how does a nice Lutheran girl, a PK, become a pagan-tinted Unitarian Universalist who tracks the sun's journey around the wheel of the year?  I can only say that it's there in my cells (and in Pumpkin Butterfly).

 

 

Solar-Powered Sun Puppet | Heidi Mordhorst

 

the dark side of me

glowers inside

drags at the tips of my toes

 

it feeds on clouds

on rainy skies

and only my shadow knows:

 

how heavy

the day is

how low the horizon

how sodden

and sad

I am

 

then sweet sun punches a hole in the clouds

sizzles and swims in my eyes

my shadow spills out through a hole in my sole

my darker side hung out to dry

 

howbrilliantthedayis!  

howhighthebluesky!

how sudden and mad I am!

 

I’m sunny side up

I’m pumped full of light 

my silhouette dances on walls

 

Now I can see clearly:

my dark doppelganger

freed by the sun's high call

 

my demon cast out, my shadow of doubt

is the shadow that proves that I am!

 

 

I hope that you and yours will find living light--outer and inner--on this shortest day, this darkest night and all through the season.  Now for the Round-Up!

April Halprin Wayland led us to the archway of the Solstice with an original poem she posted last week at Teaching Authors, her last post for 2012.  It's called "Winter Solstice: Girl Talking to the Sun."

Irene Latham leads on with an original poem "First Day of Winter" that appears in her book WHAT CAME BEFORE.

More ways to see winter come from Laura Purdie Salas, who gives us a triolet of icicles to catch the glancing light.

Bridget Magee joins us from Wee Words for Wee Ones with a "Solstice Song." 

Diane Mayr shares a slew of seasonal selections.  At Random Noodling she has 2 original poems with two very different views of St. Lucy's Day.  St. Lucy's Day originally coincided with the winter solstice.  At KK's Kwotes there's a quote by A. E. Housman and at Kurious Kitty a Housman poem.  It's not a celebration of the solstice, but echoes her feelings this week. And finally, at The Write Sisters, Diane has an original solstice tanka in an illustrated form.

Nonfiction expert and poet Buffy Silverman has done us the honor of writing her very first blog post ever for today's Winter Solstice celebration.  She brings us the "Colored Candles" of Chanukah.  Welcome, Buffy!

Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference takes us back to the beginning with a poem about the Norse goddess Freya, and, coincidentally...

Robyn Hood Black celebrates the Winter Solstice with Tabatha's "In the Great Book of Winter" at Read, Write, Howl.

Mary Lee Hahn shares an original from the Winter Poem Swap organized by the very busy Tabatha, called "Sensing the Solstice."

Amy Ludwig Vanderwater joins in with "A Candle No One Else Can See" at The Poem Farm.

Laura Shovan writes, "My post is in response to the Sandy Hook shootings. After 9-11, I heard a Wendell Berry poem that begins, 'Now you know the worst we humans have to know about ourselves.' It has always stuck with me, and came to mind last week. It is about combating darkness with the light of love."

 

From Liz Steinglass at Growing Wild, a piquant mouthful called "Seasonal Feasts."

Marjorie brings some Caribbean sunshine to our northerly darkness with a post on John Agard at Paper Tigers.

 

Linda Kulp shares granchildren rhymes at Write Time.

Tara's offering is Mary Oliver's "The Gardener," from her new collection.

 

Matt Forrest Esenwine has cookies over at Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme.  Yum!

Margaret Simon is lighting the dark with some reflections.

Renee LaTulippe is playing with homophones today at No Water River, and my apologies for an oversight...Renee also has a Grinchy Christmas poem and poetry video by guest poet Penny Klostermann called "Max Mostly Moves On":

Matt Goodfellow has a poem inspired by information on the Solstice.

Iza has "Christmas Memories" from New York from us on her blog.

Violet shares a two-part poem that riffs on various aspects of Christmas.

Today Linda at TeacherDance hones in on the important things in life--a good exercise at any time of year.

More music for us at Mother Reader:  Peace Love and Understanding!

Ruth is in with "Winter Stars" by Sara Teasdale.  It's killing me that I don't have time to go and read these until tomorrow!

Little Willow has posted Last Answers by Carl Sandburg at Bildungsroman.

Kate's "darkness into light" poem is here at Book Aunt.

Charles Ghignawould like to help light the dark with "Present Light" at The FATHER GOOSE Blog.

Fats Suela is in today at Gathering Books with Jack Prelutsky's "I'm Wrestling with an Octopus." It's far from being a solstice poem, but definitely in keeping with the bimonthly theme "Stream of Stories and Whispering Water Tales."
Sheri Doyle is in with a poem and a song about light and dreams.

Joy has not only ornaments but poetry crafts at Poetry for Kids Joy!

Gregory K has surprised himself by posting an original poem today:  Oh, Well

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Thanks to all who are brightening a grey and rainy morning here in Bethesda, and who helped me ready this post along with the gingerbread men, chestnut pate and parsnip roulade.  I'll be rounding up again at 1:30 or so, but by evening my family will be lighting the 12 candles on our Yule tree and speaking our Winter Solstice words:  "On this dark night we celebrate light and power of the human spirit to brighten and warm the season of cold and dark..."  Thanks for visiting, and I look forward to making my way to all your postings during the weekend!