Winter Solstice

To celebrate the winter solstice i'll be posting poems about the impact of light on our lives. These come from an ongoing project. The goal is to reach a thousand lights and will be compiled into a book: WINTER SOLSTICE: A THOUSAND LIGHTS. The numbers at the end of the poems indicate the number of lights reached. You can see I have a long ways to go. And you can see sometimes I cheat a little.

1.
moonlight
Closing the
window
my body
leans
towards the thick
lit fog. (1)

2.
a red window frames
it
my eyes
burst open
to see
sunlight
on the white lily. (2)

3.
1-2-3- shining spots
under the eaves
of our home
a box of light
on the outer wall
next to the front door
two floods
spilling more
a chorus of light. (8)

4.
a sliver of orange moon
about to vanish
behind the trees. (9)

5.
walked into the barn
last night
plugged in two strings
of lights
left over from a wedding
two years ago
where my daughter and her husband
danced
the marriage dance
line by line
the guests were illuminated. (33)

6,
light shines
into my tired eyes
in the middle of the
night
trying to read
I droop
Eyes burn
Light is not my friend. (34)

7.
white light heat
of summer
birds stick to the woods (35)

8.
no light outside right now
but fog and wind
but glowing hills
does this count? (36)

9. for susan kleckner
no light all day
then a square of light
cast down
shadows of leaves (38)

10.
smoky white
on the horizon
in the
middle of the night
what magic is this? (39)

11.
sunlight
strikes
my eyes
through
the
crack
in
the blind.

I won’t wake up. (40)