Solstice Poem by Peter J White

See our world pirouette around her solar track, mimicking
The stars unending marathon, jostling Venus and Mars;
A costumed harlequin wearing a cheerful face the while
She looks your way; a darker hemisphere behind her smile.
Held high by centrifugal force, a ballerina on the wing,
With weaving hips and graceful rock from Spring to Spring,
She spins majestical from night to day, unearthly and sublime
Choreography greeting the grey slash of dawn in perfect time.

But how about that creepy moment twice a year, when sure
The weather would boil or freeze you hot or cold forever,
The angle of earth’s axis to its rotation maxes just for a few
Moments of time remember, on June the twenty two,
And twenty one December; the tilting slowing, almost still,
By long decreed ethereal plan, zeroing at last, until
Those mountain masses, cities and seas, all that granite and clay
Begin, after such brief sleep, to tip the other way....


Jan ‘09