Solstice Song
by Myra Wollman
I remember it now, in the dimming light
The way the snowflakes fell that night.
I remember the sky, its silvery grey
Was drifting down in a sifting way
to cover the earth in silent white.
I felt the cold seep into my bones.
It numbed the thought that you were gone.
The chill took all that I had known,
The crushing pain of loss and grief—
I let it go and found relief.
The snow fell still—a vast, small room.
The cold held close—a snow-soft womb.
I closed my eyes and let the weight
Grow into a night so very deep
My heart and I, we fell asleep.
A spring, a summer, and a fall
Passed by, or perhaps no time at all.
What I remember is a dream of tall
pine trees, the black earth,
A baby crying in a stall.
I woke to hear their voices sing,
The moon hung on a sliver of string
From a solitary star.
The darkest evening of the year,
The bells were ringing, the time was near—
Indeed, the time was here.
Myra Wollman lives in the cold north, where she spends her days in the classroom and her nights looking for comets in the starry sky.
Artwork: The Village at Night, Sir George Clausen, 1903