Winter Solstice Bonfire

Cold but calm. The moon waxing gibbous. A pretty nice excuse for a winter solstice bonfire. We toasted the season with a bottle of Blenheim Farm Red, sculpted a big pile of old wooden lawn furniture, and blessed the sacrificial offering. “To the gods of international supply chains!”

But the guest artist at tonight’s bonfire was a grizzled old stump.

If you’ve ever split wood by hand, you’ve come across that confound cross-grained gnarly crook of a bolt. You can bash a maul on it for 30 minutes, bash on it forever, until your arms ache, and it won’t split. I toss them off into the Pile of Incorrigibles. This particular stump was a 40 year veteran. It was oddly moving to set it free after all that time.

Winter Solstice by the Numbers

This day, December 21, 2023,
there were 3 fewer seconds of sunlight in all
than yesterday, December 20, 2023.
Here at latitude 38° 07.22’ N.
Where all four seasons take watch,
in turn, during our elliptical traverse.

But the sun bottoms out tonight at 22:27:07,
in military time, out of sight, in the dark.
Or rather the cockeyed Northern Hemisphere
finishes nodding off
and begins once again paying attention
to its sole significant source of energy.

Starting tonight at 22:27:07.001,
or somewhere thereabouts,
daylight ends its retreat from darkness,
to race towards the summer solstice,
still so far off from the relative now,
past winter sleep and spring beginnings.

Tomorrow repeats today this year,
no less of light, no more. Exact.
But tomorrow’s tomorrow returns to light,
more seconds of brightness
than today, than its own yesterday.
More seconds of truth if we insist on it.