The Winter Solstice

In beginning our unit on Transcendentalism, I always feel centered and more connected to nature.  I see the snow silently falling around me like a coccoon; the sun shining through the dirty windowpane; the ladybug valiantly crawling across the windowsill, finding shelter from the chill. Winter is when nature is dormant but the seeds of life are burgeoning in the ground. We hibernate, fatten for the winter, and imagine a time when we will feel the sun.

I enjoy this poem by Hilda Morley about this chilled time of winter.  The winter solstice occurs on the darkest day of the year, so it represents the birth of the sun. What does the sun represent?- light, warmth, possibility. This poem is simply a description of the darkest day of the year and the path the moon takes when it's the furthest distance from the sun. Extrapolating, we can believe it to be the start of a new life, new hope. That's what Transcendentalism is all about.

Winter Solstice

By Hilda Morley 1916–1998 Hilda Morley

 

A cold night crosses

our path

                  The world appears

very large, very

round now       extending

far as the moon does

                                        It is from

the moon this cold travels

                                        It is

the light of the moon that causes

this night reflecting distance in its own

light so coldly

                                          (from one side of

the earth to the other)

                                        It is the length of this coldness

It is the long distance

between two points which are

not in a line        now

                                       not a

straightness       (however

straight) but a curve only,

silver that is a rock reflecting

                                                      not metal

but a rock accepting

distance

                     (a scream in silence

where between the two

points what touches

is a curve around the world

                                                      (the dance unmoving).

new york, 1969