SOLSTICE

Sister Solstice

 

Down the hall

Late

The light turned off,

The bedroom dissolves

In a night moon glow

Slanting through the gated blinds.

There are different kinds of darkness.

Always

Is the wonder

If color lies

Where,

Imagination

Sees in shadow,

The forms of everything:

The bookcase here,

The dog on her bundle,

The tanka over the bed,

The chair over there

And

The play of illusion,

When

One wall seems infinite

Because

A night-light creates the world,

Lying just behind

A shimmering dimension.

In early dawn,

The moon is gone,

Its ghost lost in swirling fog,

Which

Beads drops of water

On the garden branches.

Fading forms in mist

Link what comes behind

To what

Appears vaguely in front.

The ground

Wet with mottled Bay leaves,

Playing gold

Among the berry twigs,

Beyond the death of frost,

Still shows life,

Where mice and rabbits are quiet,

Until,

The red hawks and feral cats

Swoop them out.

When solstice arrives

All is ice,

As freeze contrives to stop time,

Resting

If ever so quickly before dawn

In stillness.

I hang her four

Pure-white-paper snowflakes

Cut,

With concentrated precision

By

Tiny scissors

And

Hung on evergreen bows

That

She is ever lost

In the freeze,

In the stillness,

In the very perfect

Point of solstice

That

Is for her

Never

Knowing spring.