by Bram

Earth freezes in the longest dark. 
A silver slipper of a new moon
dances across the longest night. 
I lay the great log in the fireplace. 
Coddled like a colicky child 
and placed with care behind the grate,
tucked in with pine kindling and
crumpled newsprint. 
The chill of the house makes me shiver,
and I light the fire.

The Yule log taken from the land. 
The scarred land – 
Land roasted from years of drought. 
Land where the rivers run dry. 
And land set aflame by well-meaning caretakers.
The land now so dry and 
now so fire-hardened 
that it resists water, if only for a little while.
The very earth itself flinches 
from even the gentlest caress of showers, 
Showers rained down by prodigal clouds. 

In the frozen clime of the high desert,
those prodigal clouds weep for the pain of the land,
their tears falling 
and freezing into delicate silvery crystals, 
patterns that blanket the fired scars 
of mountain and vale.
A cool salve on the land. 

The healing begins. 

And in the longest dark, 
the longest nights of winter,
a silver plough spinning in the night sky,
circling the great north star. 
There is not much promise 
in the great black emptiness of space, 
so I take that new moon 
and I take that silver plough 
and I take the light and warmth of the Yule fire 
as signs of great comfort. 
And my hope is renewed. 

Copyright by Frank Bramlett 2022

Presented at the Winter Solstice Poetry Reading, Placitas, New Mexico, December 2022

Published in Touching Silver, the chapbook of the poetry reading.