Solstice in the City

I know this is the Christmas weekend, but another event celebrated religiously through the millennia occurred three days ago - winter solstice. And this is my take on it. Happy Holidays, Everyone.



Solstice in the City


Winter's opening night buried in a flurry
of holidays. The stage readied
for a story pitting gloom and Borealis

against a weakened Sol
and his straggling bands of luminance.
The shopworn play dusted-off annually

despite the certainty of mixed reviews
and an empty Presidential box.
But there exist those of us

who gather this drama into our bones,
know the dialogue of each par-sec of light,
hold tight to Tolstoy, Chekov

and winter's untouched script,
drink Rachmaninov and Liszt.
But rewrites cut short the soliloquy

of spiteful cold, shave lines from arctic ice.
And audiences everywhere protest
the relentless revisions.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor