Solstice in the City

We are in the middle of a December warm streak. Towns to the north of us set records for high temps yesterday, and whatever snow that has fallen here will soon be gone. Winter solstice, waiting at the end of this week, holds no sting this year.



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 struggling 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 acquainted with the story
protest the relentless revisions.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor