Solstice

It is just barely morning
And high up in a grandfather oak
A blackbird watches for
The sun
Maybe hoping to catch
That brightest, shining thing,
Bring it home
To its cache of treasures.
This is solstice,
The darkest day,
The turning of the year.
We breathe deeply,
Prepare to bide our time,
Wait for a softer morning.
It does not seem to us
That we are truly tiny beings,
Riding on a wet bit of cosmic rock
As it twirls around a star,
Which itself is streaking away
From a wondrous explosion
At the birth of time.
Someday this little world
Will end,
Gone in a great galactic collision
Or a burst of starfire.
But today we live
For another spring,
Look not for an ending
But a birth.
In the night
We listen for the whispers, echoes
Of the first Word,
Which is something like a song,
And in our morning
Reach as high as we can
For that brightest, shining thing
Which is treasure,
Which is life.