The confluence of winter solstice and lunar eclipse tonight, for me, calls out for poetry – and just in time, I recieved my annual solstice-poem card from my friend and Nashville writing group pal, Leslie Lytle. In addition to being a lovely poet and a friend, Leslie is also the author of Execution’s Doorstep. The photograph is hers, too. I know it’s not quite Tuesday, but I’m posting this today in hopes this lovely poem will enrich your enjoyment of the evening. – Meg
Thirty-something years ago—1979—I began sending hand-crafted solstice cards. The first two cards were illustration-only affairs—a block print from a design carved in wood and a stencil. The next year, I include a 
poem inside and that was to become the tradition.
The early solstice cards with both text and an illustration were cut-and-paste projects that I drove thirty miles to have printed in those pre-high-tech home printer days. A few of the people on my mailing list tell me they’ve saved all those cards. In some cases, I only have the master, though. Many years I sent all the cards I printed.
The poem has typically been a selection culled from my past year’s cannon. But this year, perhaps because these are harsh times, all of the poems I’d written recently sounded desperate. I was mulling this over, curled up in the duct-taped-together leather recliner I inherited from my grandfather—my favorite chair for thinking and musing. Maybe I wouldn’t do cards this year, or at least, not a poem, and then from that place of wonder where the unpredictable is born, there came the line, “I don’t have a poem this year…”
As the Nights Get Longer
For you who are anxiously waiting
I don’t
have a poem this year. You
have a poem. The poem
wrote about you
dreaming you woke up and the morning
sun glowing behind black branches
sinks lower and lower in the sky,
a sleepy sun not quite ready to wake up
blinking back the brilliance of first light,
giving in to the sleep
you want to keep
sleeping and you whisper
thank you to the sun
for granting your wish.
In keeping with the wonder of the solstice
may you find the good in what you shun
and embrace with awe
all that finds you.
Shanti,
Leslie Lytle
