Solstice Morning
by Elizabeth Vongvisith
Sunrise
and the stones are wet with dew,
shining erect in circles, surrounded
by grass growing lush and green.
Sunrise
and a bird’s call wakens the people
from their soft summer sleep,
brings them blinking and joyous
into the radiance of this longest day.
He stands, stretches, muscle and bone
taut under tawny skin, hair flowing
in a cascade of gold, smiling, teeth
white and lips waiting to catch
the breath that bursts through.
Under a different roof,
her hands draw a comb
through her matching tresses falling
in glowing showers over her shoulders
and rounded, soft breasts.
Morning
and the day widens, bluer than blue
as the dancing commences with singing
under the green boughs, laughter
echoing in the fields and forests
while women and men chase and catch
each other, folding arms and bright eyes,
the sweetest honey of kisses, the fertile
scent of earth spreading herself to the sky.
Morning
and they dress, each
in robes of brilliant white, shining glorious
in the cool shadows of their separate dwellings
as their attendants make merry with fruit,
flowers, mead and water as clear
as the eyes that gaze knowingly
across the gentle green fields to where
he has come out of his magnificent hall,
waiting for her, his twin.
The procession arrays itself in splendor
born of plenty, of surety and abundance:
gossamer robes, feathers and the softest,
thinnest deerskin, sparkling stones, leaves
and flowers crowning heads, bright ribbons
and banners and above them, the solar wheel
fixed in gold, shimmering, a pale twin
of Sunna’s radiant chariot racing above.
But below her turning wheels, neither
is the shadow of the other, both are golden,
magnificent, the power of life and love
walking in two forms that were once one,
and will soon be so again.
Trumpet blasts, the cry of excitement, birds
rising in calling flocks, the music and shouts
as the twins are escorted across the fields,
barefoot, flowers springing lush and fragrant
beneath their feet, born of every step, hands
intertwined, hair blowing in dual flags of spun gold
in the warm summer wind, robes pressing
and draping over bodies formed so perfectly
by the hand of some unseen master,
and now it is time.
Noon
and the shining pair walk alone
into the center of the largest circle, pillars
of stone thrust into the softness of earth,
grass tickling their feet, flowers arising
from every fated step, while the procession
circles around, singing and dancing, throwing
grain and gold into the circle, showering
the life of the fields and the life of the earth
with more and more and yet more.
Now she smiles, turns those cornflower eyes
to her brother, touches his face, the old magic
swirling around them as his eyes slip shut,
his hands search and find her, his mouth
closes over his twin’s, this magic made today
as it has for thousands of years, and they fall
like the rain of an August afternoon
to bless and replenish the earth,
together as they once were in
the dark, secret womb of their mother.
Her sweet sigh shatters the stillness within
the circle as he rises into her; his laughter
breaks the rippling air into mirages.
Flesh moves on flesh, flowers and grasses wave
around their twining bodies, the deepening echo
of the oldest magic there is.
The dancers whirl madly, their song rising
to a pinnacle of feverish delight, her voice
and his climbing to reach and surmount
that beckoning place, and at last the earth ripples
under the interlinked bodies, the dancing feet,
the stones and the trees, the power rising
in a wave of passion and love to bless all
within the great pulse of magic and begin
the tumble of the year into darkness.
Noon
and the land renews itself
from the love of its lady and lord,
the exuberant songs and dances of its people,
the bright flowers whose soft petals splash the land
by an unseen wind faintly tinged with cold.