Winter Solstice

Each winter the dark replants us,
thumbs us into the loam of long night.

Snow swaddles houses
till late morning reveals them

with worn gingham light.
Winter’s black chamber quiets us,

splits us with auroras, road-salt stars.
The north pitches on each year

into lucid dark, gelid sunrises.
And now the brindled back of light—

the slow stammer of days that stretch,
afternoons that yawn into slow evenings.

Summer will be a warm immersion,
but for now, it is the face of a mask

holding itself up near our faces.
We look in through its eyeholes

and glimpse spring like a photograph.
Out beyond sight, cold rivers trickle

threading dark winter
incanting winter solstice

the year’s center of gravity
we reel around

alive in the cold
and all of our homemade warmth.