From “Solstice Songs: O Holy Night” in The Return of the Light: Twelve Tales from Around the World for the Winter Solstice by Carolyn McVickar Edwards:
Oh holy night!
The stars are brightly shining!
It is the night of the Sun Child’s birth.
Long we have lain in cold
and fear of hunger
But Sun returns
And the Earth wakes again!
A ray of hope:
The weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks
A new and glorious morn!
Sing and give thanks
Oh lift your voices high now
The Sun returns
Sun returns
to light the world.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Oh Sun returns!
From “December Mist” by Morgan Golladay in Solstice: A Winter Anthology, edited by Dianne Pearce:
Sunlight reflects blue off the
banded mist, begotten by yesterday’s
warm sun on December earth. The gods of
soil and field slumber still,
cold slowly settling into their bones.
I walk the verge, waiting, watching….
I greet this Solstice
with calm, measured footsteps, waiting and
watching
as cycles turn.
From “Winter Solstice Sleep” by Clive Frobisher in A Poem for All Seasons, compiled by Robert Blackham:
As sunlight withers and day departs,
Night time claims the hills and fields.
Cloaking treetops in icy darkness,
Forgotten ghost of summer past.
Creatures bolt into earthy beds,
Spiralling into slumber farther deep.
Through the longest night of year,
Nothing stirs, time seems frozen still….
Through the winter they endure,
Dormant in subterranean cocoons.
Awakening with the yawns of Spring,
The creatures rise to start anew.
