December 21: Turning Point, Christmas and Hannukah, "Solstice"

I always find winter solstice strange.  It's a turning point, my part of the world tipping from darkness to light.  Yet, the darkness is what usually pervades my thoughts.  As night takes over--as it now has--my thoughts turn darker.  Mortality.  Mental illness.  Homelessness.  Hunger.  These are winter musings, for some reason.  Perhaps because the cold and snow make them more acute.

Christmas and Hanukkah are seasons of light.  They reflect the coming of hope.  I think that's why I've always enjoyed this time of year.  In the midst of all of the holiday frenzy--at its very heart--lies the possibility for renewal.  Spring, if you will.

So, on this December 21st, I wish everybody a little light.  A candle of possibility.

Solstice

by:  Martin Achatz

I watch my daughter for signs of madness,

For her limbs to wind so tight

She rattles like a window pane

In a blizzard.  For her brain to leap, spit,

The way grease does in a hot skillet,

From algebra and pirouette, from glacier

To comet, white fire in a black sky.

On this December 21, I address Christmas

Cards, slip photos of my daughter

Into the envelopes.  She looks so much

Like her mother in the picture,

I can almost see my wife’s blood

Pulsing beneath my daughter’s milk skin,

Helix of family twisting, climbing

Through bone and nail, spine and nerve,

To the place in her body where joy and grief

Live.  I think of my wife’s arms,

Mapped with hieroglyphs of scar.

I sometimes trace these delicate,

Pink sepals with my fingers, listen

To their story of mountain, canyon, wild sea.

Think of an old woman at church

Who sits with her blind son.

The son sways, groans in the pew,

As if he bears some Atlas weight

On his back.  The old woman places

Her hand on her child’s shoulder,

Tries to calm the storm of his body,

The way, I’m sure, Mary comforted

Her child on his climb to Golgotha.

The old woman’s son tilts his head

To the apse of the sanctuary,

His marbled eyes wide, staring

Upwards, at something unseen,

A long dead star, perhaps, guiding

Him, me, my wife, my daughter

Across rock and sand,

Long desert night,

Toward the promise of spring,

Of light.

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