Winter Solstice by John Hanson

The first blue stain of light

has not yet spilled itself

across the blackness of the night,

and I am elsewhere,

sailing through the half‑world,

drifting on a tide of sleep

down rivulets of dreams.

Achingly…

imperceptibly, the world turns by degrees

to face the scant warmth of dawn,

lapping still lazily at the shore of the day—

the shortest of days—

on which the year turns,

and all life must die to be reborn.

The small and quarrelsome creature

that I have become

through the dark days of winter

stretches back into the shape of lengthening days,

brought to life

by soft kisses of light,

until all darkness is burned away

and I am alive again.