The work of our hearts is dust — Charles Reznikoff

And snow, flaking beneath our feet

and ice, and sleet and the particles

of storyboard we mend together with song -

This season's longest days are further reasons

to write, with dust as ink and time, as paper

folded into airplanes

inspired by Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays by Charles Reznikoff https://poets.org/poem/meditations-fall-and-winter-holidays

Winter #SolsticePoem Prompts (via Deanna): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZjzQCxAlSozwsiWI-KBWYmTv6AdFEME4V9AQwrATcnE/present?slide=id.p

We came to transmit the shimmering from which we came ... — Etel Adnan

I wish I could put a finger on the moment when you were less shadow than person and the shimmering was light playing tricks on my eyes

Still, I cried, in the knowing of the something that had come and gone, as winter always arrives in the days after the cold fall of Autumn

This world survives – there's evidence of that in the ocean's tides, even as we remember the lost who walked here before us - At dawn, the constellations are calling

inspired by “Surge” by Etel Adnan https://poets.org/poem/surge

Winter #SolsticePoem Prompts (via Deanna): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZjzQCxAlSozwsiWI-KBWYmTv6AdFEME4V9AQwrATcnE/present?slide=id.p

“Next June’s lover speaks the harvest: your rich, vowel-tender song” — Kemi Alabi

Yes, I am listening to your whispering of this winter

I am hearing the quiet clearing of your tongue

I am asleep, huddled deep, inside the Solstice

We both are graying, every day, praying, hours linger longer

Yes, I am listening to your whispering of this winter

Inspired by The Lonely Sleep Through Winter by Kemi Alabi https://poets.org/poem/lonely-sleep-through-winter

Winter #SolsticePoem Prompts (via Deanna): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZjzQCxAlSozwsiWI-KBWYmTv6AdFEME4V9AQwrATcnE/present?slide=id.p

Remembering childhood winters —

always the lost mittens the boots packed in socks with snow the ice wind closing hazy eyes layers upon layers upon layers trudging the way, windward

Then: the front door slam behind, a shoulder lowered against the gale, strength drawn from the warmth of the house

inspired by Winter Is Coming by Waverley Turner Carmichael https://poets.org/poem/winter-coming

Winter #SolsticePoem Prompts (via Deanna): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZjzQCxAlSozwsiWI-KBWYmTv6AdFEME4V9AQwrATcnE/present?slide=id.p

“It dizzies me a little to look down” — from Toward The Winter Solstice by Timothy Steele

Here, on the edge where gutters rub against roof, my toes are tipped on neither shingle nor air, as the first lights of holiday flicker with energy, butterflies in flight

We can hear the recipients of this daring tightrope crying out inside the frame of a foggy second floor window, open as our escape

We're reveling in a shared gift of star-sky quiet, fingers to our lips, chasing memories in the night

original poem: https://poets.org/poem/toward-winter-solstice

Winter #SolsticePoem Prompts (via Deanna): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZjzQCxAlSozwsiWI-KBWYmTv6AdFEME4V9AQwrATcnE/present?slide=id.p