Winter Solstice:

The Dream that is My Life

Caught in the midst of the lunar eclipse of the dream 

that is my life, I remember how

the Tree held me invisible in her nest 

of golding leaves. Hidden from crows,

visited by kinglets, I got dizzy--

their little lives a swirl about my head.

Ruby-crowns pecked bud worms from my curls.

Out of the moonless, darkened lake, I 

rose in a curve of a current and burst, leaping 

like an owl off her snowy branch

into the night, the starry, foam-specked sky.

You must know I danced at midnight, as 

the Irish dance, flying hair, bright

wings at my side, yellow claws clacking

out the rhythm on the ancient boards;

you know the tune, "Bringing Back the Light."

That old old fairground on the misty road 

to the distant village of my birth--

oh the dancing there! And in the Tree

the bees have made a hive so grand the girth

runs gold and sweet, honey from crown to ground.

Skunks, opossums, raccoons found

their way in the dark to the Licking Tree,

dipping paws and sticky nose--the bees

drowsed and hummed their honey sound.

Bear tracks in the village green, owl 

feathers in the honey spark, a late

fire burns to glowing coal--all 

this evidence when I went out at dawn

after the darkest night, after the light

that is my life, deciding to return.

--Sandy Brown Jensen