Please note that the poems and essays on this site are copyright and may not be reproduced without the author's permission.


Sunday 20 December 2009

Solstice


.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Haussperling.JPG




Cold floating days, difficult to keep body

Temp. up as planet cools off mysteriously

This P.M. two small grey birds bump

About in the rose bush for a while

A capella (no rush hour for once)

In last rays of tinny Christmas sun

While voluntary trumpets are quietly

Emitted by radio into Jerusalem foiled sky

Far off and to our great astonishment

O blue earth sounds your golden flower

From the bell of its silver horn

I didn’t think it would ever come back on




File:French horn front.png



House sparrow (Passer domesticus) with winter plumage: photo by 3268zauber, 3 January 2009

French horn: photo by BenP, 2006


8 comments:

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,
Yes, "Cold floating days, difficult to keep body/ Temp up. . . ." Yesterday morning, a small fox sparrow (about the size of the house sparrow in your photo) flew into glass kitchen door -- lying on the step, eyes open and breathing but otherwise not moving, and then after a short while, it stopped breathing too. . . .

12.20

grey light coming into sky above blackness
of ridge, motion of shadowed green leaves
in foreground, sound of waves in channel

pass into language, whether
meaning prior to it

leaves, arrangement in line
of light, incidence

silver circle of sun reflected in channel,
white clouds in pale blue sky above ridge

. said...

I love the visual idea of 'tinny Christmas sun'.

TC said...

solstice of the pagan gods

Green motion shadowed in tinny Christmas sun
lying on the step, eyes open and breathing
otherwise the visual idea not moving
sound of leaves in silver circle of light, incidence
reflected in language without prior meaning

intertangled thorns

Mariana Soffer said...

Beautifull text, let me bet a little playfull with it.
I managed to understand when solstices are and what happens when they came, but I could never learn wether I am at PST, PST plus 1 or another vertical time line. Do you know how to do that?
Take care friend

TC said...

Mariana,

You are five hours further into the day than we are.

I haven't yet managed my first chirp.

Abrazos, T

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Thanks for this Tom, that "tinny Christmas sun" disappeared into the rain clouds yesterday pm., ridge now missing too. I found your 'comment' on my 12.2 yesterday, and left you one back. . . .

TC said...

Stephen,

Many thanks. Perhaps others who have been following your reports on the morning lights of the ridge and the channel would be interested in the exchange here.

Anonymous said...

And the minds of men "evolved" in such a way that the beginning of the winter has become something else. In the North, at least, they still relate it with the Christmas spirit. Down south, it is just the ski season...