Conjunction #poetry #Earthweal

I’m no believer in astrology
but tonight
something profound
will occur in the sky:
Two points of light will coalesce
from our perspective
(dim though it is)
last spied
in Galileo’s time.
In cosmic terms, this time is nothing
but for us, it means much:
Transition out of superstition
into a willing suspension of belief
in anything other than those cold cogs
gravely grinding like our noses to the grindstone:
Blakean mills with complicated wheels.
Here we are, in the darkest part of the year
for the Northern hemisphere
as darkness turns us back towards the light
and in the Antipodes the opposite
is happening
frost into fire
and fire into night:
And yet when I see those distant pinpricks
of heavenly bodies in spherical fellowship
somehow still
meditating on how little we know
in the solstice dark and quiet
all is calm
and all is
bright.

© Experimentsinfiction 2020, All Rights Reserved

A Solstice Poem

Written for Earthweal’s weekly challenge: A Solstice Bell. Brendan has examined the significance of the solstice from the perspective of our current troubled times. He has asked us to do the following:

“Being changed: That is the earthweal challenge for this week of Yuletide hallows. Ring a solstice bell for the change we are. (Be sure to take a look outside before using the word “we.”) What is the change revealed in this seasonal moment, and what does portend for the coming year? Out of darkness, what stirs and wakens?”

I don’t know if I’ve fulfilled this brief, but the conjunction of the planets really sparked something in me. It’s set cloudy for tonight, so I won’t actually see the closest moment of conjunction, but I am grateful to have seen these pinpricks of light on 16/12/20 as shown in the featured image. The view was taken from my window, and the larger of the two pinpricks is Jupiter, the smaller, Saturn.

Here’s a hymn to close out with this solstice evening: