Solstice

From the furthest reaches

of the universe

light travels 

over 13 billion years

from visible or ultraviolet 

stretched and lengthened

until it shifts 

into infrared 

and so we have built vessels

to capture the seeing of it

beyond the limits 

of our eyes. 

What better promise 

of eternity 

against the exhalation 

of the spark of us 

burning down the stem

of the match

than the return of this 

ancient light 

from the dawn of 

our measured time. 

And so I carry the life flame 

through the solstice night

because after the dark 

radiance is returning and

even when I’m looking 

down into the well

of my own death 

I am promised a new season 

because the sun

in its excursion

has reached the north

of the celestial equator

on the sphere 

of the heavens.