A Verse Flower Winter Solstice 2017 Poem by Daniel Brick

for Baharak

I

The watchers have told us for centuries
this is the longest night of the year.
More darkness will pour over our bodies
tonight than any other night. Our ancestors
woke in abject fear of this increased weight
of the dark pressing upon their sleep. So why
do I feel so light-hearted? So calm and poised?
Is it mere habit that assures me of tomorrow's
dawn? I am inclined to look deeper and wider
into this night which grants me extra darkness
to contemplate the blank sky, the occluded stars,
the stretched-out hours passing slowly, and
the infinite extent of night's wings fanning
the silence of motionless frozen air.

II

Early this evening I saw the red glow
of the new solstice sun smeared
across the low horizon, and its light
was so pale, its red so undernourished
that I realized it held little benefit
for us who rely on borrowed light
and warmth. So I turned away and faced
the deepest darkness of the year,
perhaps with a trace of our ancestors'
fear. But a warm thought quickly dispelled
it. Instead I greeted the fading light
as sufficient for my purpose, and brought
forth a flower that blossomed in the light
of poets and through the warmth of their
friendship. It is the Verse Flower of your
favorite colors I have imagined into existence.
You have yourself imagined flowers into being.
Last summer six stalks of sunflowers bowed
every morning in gratitude, a hedge festooned
with white petals gave shelter to huddled wrens,
and in early autumn the willowy flowers we call
Baby's Breath waved their fragrance of delight
in your presence. But tonight, my friend, you can
rest, assured that the Verse Flower casts its aroma
even into early winter air. The sharp wind carries
the fragrance awry, but do not worry: the Verse Flower
shares the resilience of one of our sturdy poems.
It needs nothing from you to flourish in your presence,
except your eyes gazing over its growth, your eyes
filled with the light of your being, the sole illumination
required to make this flower of December glow both night and day.