Solstice. Poem by Conor Dowd

The Earth is furthest from the Sun
which means the WInter has begun
when the climate changes shape
and shifts a gear,
and it's always cold this time of year
when the Earth adjusts itself in sleep.

The frost is still alive
where the sunshine fails to linger.
I kneel beside the grassy verge
and place my fingers in the soil
and feel the Earth retain her secrets
where time and hibernation feed it.

A cinema inside my head
sees Earth careering through the dark of space,
a blue and green impression in the dark,
revolving at a thousand miles an hour
with our Sun a distant memory
so far away this time of year.

We hardly make a sound
as we swing along an orbit round a black horizon
and beyond it for a rendezvous again
some day.