Solstice Sonnet by Dudley Laufman

Solstice Sonnet

December twenty one is winter solstice.
Sometimes tee shirt weather, most times cold.
The strength of winter’s weight is well upon us
as we struggle single file through wind and snow.

Making our way to the distant ancient grove
deep in the forest where the bonfire holds
for the northern conifer Ents to move
around the altar like cowled monks of old.

A cedar smudge is lit and mother nature
trembles in her boots, thinks, Foiled again.
The directions are blessed, the soul, the sky, the earth,
beavers, crows, Percherons and then
an elder lights a wand to torch the pile
and the sun begins to lighten up the sky.

Dudley Laufman was raised in the Boston area. He went to agricultural school, but has spent most of his time as a musician. He & Jacqueline (pictured) live on the edge of the woods in Canterbury, NH and earn their money by playing fiddles for dancing. Laufman is the author of An Orchard & A Garden (William Bauhan Press 1974), Mouth Music (Wind in the Timothy Press 2001), The Stoneman (Shaker Village Inc. 2005), Walking Sticks (Beech River Books 2007), and the chapbooks Smoke Screen and Behind the Beat (Pudding House 2004, 2008), as well as numerous other pamphlets, chapbooks and broadsides. He is the subject of the documentary film The Other Way Back.

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Poem and photo used here with the permission of the poet. All rights reserved.