Winter Solstice,

Yosemite Valley

DAVE SETER

 

 

Starlight thrills,

opens ceilings, walls,

calls people out

 

from rented cabins, beds,

to wander dirty floorboards, says

don’t go back to bed,

 

stay. A sleepless solstice,

a cabin’s back porch,

perfect for guessing,

 

like Orion, arm raised,

perfect for asking why

we wake at all from sleep.

 

Bare-armed black oaks

crowd the lawn, reach up,

entangle Orion’s latticework,

 

but it’s already been broken.

The stars speed slowly apart,

their penalty for having been.

 

Myth-makers say

Orion’s heel, Rigel, glows hot

in blame for misplaced lust.

 

What’s not to understand?

We punish ourselves for decisions

made in the dark.

 

The light others mine

we give away, color, clarity, cut,

bruise our fingers with hardness.

 

Across the valley floor, Sentinel Rock

broods, but once flowed hot

like skin loving bones, in the open,

before ceilings, before walls.