the darkest night of the year somewhere along a reef-ringed archipelago a couple midday and midway through some amorous episode is lengthening the occasion with wine and music something they don’t often do when they’re back home and good for them but in the hush under the threat of some blast from the Arctic we huddle close and make our heat in other ways poetry readings fireside and under the glow of a lamp bent over our shoulder wanting to share in our warmth we gather in knees & elbows on sheepskin games and stories having footraces and the voices! these things we often do when we’re at home and good for us it is not the shortest day but the longest night —ZW
reflection: if you’re also in the northern hemisphere, you’re probably aware our days have been growing shorter and shorter… the slow crawl of the sun down the horizon can come with a sense of loneliness and even depression (are you taking your cod liver oil?). it can feel like the sun itself is ignoring you—off to catch up with the Argentines, leaving you cracking sheets of ice off your windshield in the dark. there’s even the phrase that an old man or woman “has seen many winters”. it can be a heavy season (leaving aside the rush and commercialism for the moment)…
last year I was on tour through October, listening to Little Women with my daughter on our way through Philadelphia, Saratoga, Concord and Boston, and I noticed that the shadows of the trees never really got underneath them… they were laying long shadows across the road all day! I had forgotten how far north we were, and how their northern winters were even longer than mine… but as my wife has pointed out, how much storytelling has been born out of those long dark evenings? with nights that long, it seems to make sense why the northeast has been a fountain for American literature.
I began to feel an invitation not to spite the long, dark evenings of the colder season, but to embrace them for their virtues.
tomorrow is winter solstice (and Yalda). the night after that we’ll be gathering with some good, long-time friends and singing Christmas carols together… I hope you too find some ways of keeping in the warmth and the light through these dark nights of winter. pomegranate anyone?
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the above poem comes from the NIGHT section in my book of poetry, Snowmelt to Roots. (also available on Amazon + Barnes & Noble)
cheers, merry Christmas, and happy year’s end,
Z