SOLSTICE BIRTH DAYS DARK TO LIGHT, 2002
“The Creator’s sun will probably shine, the Creator’s moon gleam palely/ the stars in heaven twinkle, the Big and Little Bear be spread out.” Kalevala, Runo 24
Even at the Equator
how earth orbits dark to light.
On this, my solstice birthday
this insane war-threatened year
I wake in dark December
take pen to write down my dreams
of forest fires and water;
soon the daylight now dormant
will restore at a rate of
2 minutes a day until
the spring equinox of March
twirls to the solstice of June.
The comfort of earth cycles
dull grey clouds of sodden snow
turn us inevitably
in season’s pace to yellow
swirling to blue summer skies.
My great grandmother Anna
also born on the 19th
in peasant Finland, 1854
probably in a sauna
perhaps among steaming cows–
ironic cleanness of wood smoke–
into a dim family room
piled, ancient, weathered lake rocks
Suomi’s sweat lodge ritual.
We’re all born from dark to light.
Think of a teenage virgin
impregnated by a dove.
God incarnate? beams of light?
so that their child – hers and God’s–
could be born – by blackblood gush
borne in a slide,
dark to light.
From the black womb the slick head
glides down, pushes forth to white;
promised peace of season’s change
the birth canal primordial.
The carols and hymns say it:
“silent night,” “spinning dreidel,”
“in a manger,” “midnight clear.”
Perhaps in this image
hope
perhaps now while war beckons
perhaps in this season while
in a den the hoary bear
hibernates, we can avert –
guide our world from dark to light.
© 2002 Jane Piirto
All Rights Reserved