Sky tilted its face to leeward
in the slant of the year ending,
a simple turning away from yesterday
displacing distance, having come this far.
This far, no further, said the calendar pages, turning…
Winter cloud concealed the hours,
and snow in it fell white from heaven,
its falling, a blindness on leaf and river,
its lying, a reminder that time might be so still.
So still, so cold, whispered the starlight, dying…
In this beginning marked for celebration,
no-one stood on the last tick of midnight
to cheer it or embrace under the moon's setting
in the slant of the year ending,
a simple turning away from yesterday
displacing distance, having come this far.
This far, no further, said the calendar pages, turning…
Winter cloud concealed the hours,
and snow in it fell white from heaven,
its falling, a blindness on leaf and river,
its lying, a reminder that time might be so still.
So still, so cold, whispered the starlight, dying…
In this beginning marked for celebration,
no-one stood on the last tick of midnight
to cheer it or embrace under the moon's setting
half-gibbous and drunk on the old year’s sorrow.
How far till tomorrow? we prayed for it to arrive…
Jupiter and Saturn in conjunction, Mars,
the warrior, hesitant, Uranus square in Taurus,
pestilence riding roughshod, cataclysm sweeping
change and rebellion, over the wide impermanent Earth.
What good, if any? asked the wind, all things considered…
The planet in its eternal turning,
lifted whatever next from the debris of its orbit
around the sun whose shining was a storm where life
flourished or foundered, crested or perished, in its waves.
As far as the eye, replied the darkness, dispelled…
… as dawn rose from the ocean, as things of light do,
hearing the creak of geology count out time more deep
than the perpetual rain of day and night across the world;
circling death, birth and precession, it cast the shadows out.
The last of the year. Just one more, I said, and went for January. Rather than look back, embracing the future seemed more appropriate. As I went, looking for ideas and symbols, I crossed the orbital idiosyncrasies of our planet in winter, hurtling round the sun at its 23ยบ rakish tilt. Then winter and its weathers (with a touch of the celestial for good measure). Hogmanay, of course, with the hint at celebration (and, this year, the lack of it, except in raucously obstinate boorachs, where the party-crowds hope Covid can never reach…)
In the midst, though, I was reminded of the pre-Christmas conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. Astronomically, significant and much talked about. Beyond the cosmological, I thought, there will be other significances and so there are - now woven in.
But, back to celestial mechanics and the peculiarities of dawn in a universe where, never mind us humans, life goes on…
around the sun whose shining was a storm where life
flourished or foundered, crested or perished, in its waves.
As far as the eye, replied the darkness, dispelled…
… as dawn rose from the ocean, as things of light do,
hearing the creak of geology count out time more deep
than the perpetual rain of day and night across the world;
circling death, birth and precession, it cast the shadows out.
© BH, 2020
The last of the year. Just one more, I said, and went for January. Rather than look back, embracing the future seemed more appropriate. As I went, looking for ideas and symbols, I crossed the orbital idiosyncrasies of our planet in winter, hurtling round the sun at its 23ยบ rakish tilt. Then winter and its weathers (with a touch of the celestial for good measure). Hogmanay, of course, with the hint at celebration (and, this year, the lack of it, except in raucously obstinate boorachs, where the party-crowds hope Covid can never reach…)
In the midst, though, I was reminded of the pre-Christmas conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. Astronomically, significant and much talked about. Beyond the cosmological, I thought, there will be other significances and so there are - now woven in.
But, back to celestial mechanics and the peculiarities of dawn in a universe where, never mind us humans, life goes on…
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