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