Walking carefully in the dark,
Up the gravel driveway.
Bumpy bits under my feet.
Want a path? No way!
I’m here to feel things as they are,
No help from path or lights.
Too feel the stillness and the dark,
On this cold, old night.
The longest night of the whole year
Has come around again.
I want to sense it’s presence full
Because I known not when
My life here in this living world,
Will come to an end.
Experience it fully, wholly,
Holy too I say.
I won’t be here tomorrow
But I may not go away.
Winter Solstice
By Franklin Price
Dec 21, 2025
Today is Winter solstice
In the northern hemisphere
Above the Arctic Circle
Sunshine does not appear
Daylight is the shortest
And Winter has begun
Every day until the Summer
Each day will have more Sun
That’s the way the Earth works
As it moves around the Sun
That is why we have four seasons
Happy Winter everyone!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The year is
cumbersome now~
an awkward
breath held
between
the dark
and
what comes
next.
Trees' black silhouettes
stand out
against the
sky as it
fades.
The sun,
low
and exhausted,
touches
everything
but warms
nothing.
This is the turning~
a gentle hinge
of light,
the world
tilting back
toward
possibility.
this winter solstice
light a candle in the night...
bid the sun's return
May your annual commemoration
of the winter solstice
with one of the Earth's poles
at its maximum tilt from the sun
be abundant with innumerable manifestations
of felicity friends good food and fun
and may the next full circuit
of the ecliptic engender
a propensity toward
bestowing plenteousness too
and may unparalleled prosperity
be forthcoming
and settle like snowflakes
gently upon you
The winter solstice
Is as big as the year
A small reunion
May you have
The warmest love
On the longest night
The days after this
Are like cold light
Meets the sun
Bright and bright.
Winter Is here,
Fear washed away my sorrow with desperation and opportunism,
Now I wait for winter,
For I will meet the woman of my dreams in winter,
Torrid freezing,
Will throw her into my arms,
Winter is here,
Fear washed away my manhood with white supremacy,
I’m dreaming of a white woman,
To wash away all of my sorrow,
I am desperate and opportunistic,
Winter is here,
I finally found my white bride,
She told me she loved me as she put me in handcuffs for being black,
I cried tears of joy,
Winter is here,
My jacket is white like the snow,
It makes me look cool,
But I can’t move,
And boy do I have some moves.
Radiant crystals illuminate thee, nocturnal mistress
in the wan dawn light where darkness drapes skies
Requiem aeternam bright halo, lies heaven’s portal
Winters wispy cirrus refracting ring circling
Mohawkin bespeaks of a Christmas cold moon
…December’s icy grip
Riffling ebb and tide, spawner of loon
Let rage and ruin Not be the end of me
Rubaiyat’s rhyme in thy honor
Let the waters settle, quotes of Rumi
Mercurial doomsday ruminates Mina Loy
Reigning ascendant masking impressions
Clouds envelop, shadow’s born shorn
Ravishing stillness, stormy tasks pending…
bright white ring of light
rage and ruin’s calmly still ~
not the end of me
winter solstice arriving...
shortest day and longest night...
silent trees gather forces
for returning light
lighter, longer, brighter days
saunter through the winter gloom...
light triumphs over darkness
renewal awaits
Freezer door open early winter crystals emerge
I am sunk deep
in the dark of this day,
peer out of a hollow
that holds the tribe's history
drawn in ochre on a rock wall.
Outside is a numb, frozen world
that yields little food. Animals
are scarce and I am kept alive
by stealth and making most
of the meager offerings that
fall to my spear.
I hate being here,
imprisoned in a poem, placed
in this icy wasteland of prehistory,
cold, abandoned in a pocket of time
by a poet sitting in a warm room
in the twenty-first century.
Note.
Winter Solstice will occur
on the the twenty first of June
for us southern hemisphere
tribes.
masked the winters wind
torrid blows covering the...
naked skins of them
~
humanity cold
frozen speechless versions of
winter solstice frost
2/3/24
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2024
("Winter's Edge", 2018, original encaustic)
Darkness
Darkness darkness be the pillow
That pulls me in and holds me down
When all around the light had faded
And nowhere within it can be found
Somewhere some one is now crying
Out for love or something near
While in silence the dark is calling
A soothing sound but void of cheer
As I sit with dog attentive
Without a clue what humans know
The day outside still bright with promise
Yet in I’m trapped nowhere to go
A pain of loss without dimension
A lack of love for life at hand
A treading of these stale waters
A nowhere place for nowhere man
Come, oh come, bring resolution
For it can’t end in such a way
From the dark a light is growing
The promise of a solstice day…
(12/23/23)
Give yourself to slumber
under ink black clouds.
Moon below the horizon,
light for when it’s dark.
Lie in peaceful presence.
Silhouette of the trees
mythologies reverberate
of songs, put us to sleep.
Dream of all the beings,
our kin gathered around,
flames flicker in shadows
mysteries of living found.
Maybe someday you’ll join us
under the sky’s moonlight.
Stories, song and dancing
long into the warm night.
I hope someday you’ll join us
maybe for just one tale.
World quiet from the fighting
a chance to just exhale.
You find a place where
the sun reaches across
the river with a little feeble
warmth to rest on your face.
Soon it will be the shortest day.
The shadows are cold
and stretch out like fingers,
pinching at what light
you've managed to keep
flickering within yourself.
You find something pleasant
to think about, a memory
perhaps, a fancy,
anything to put into
an old heater to keep
you warm and give out
a comforting glow.
It is then, images begin
to take form in flame
as something in you stirs
and writes itself in ash
to mark another winter solstice
on the walls of your
hibernating soul.
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