Solstice

I open the window, and the icy rain blows into my face. Thank God.

I'm reaching for you, across the miles, along the filaments of light spun fine from the crescent moon.

We complain about Christmas, but really it's just what we need: a desolation, a hole in the bottom of the year. How could there be a solstice if we didn't really believe that all the light and love and warmth might really drain out of the world forever and ever? That it might be always Christmas, always frantic, every bond of affection a fetter, every song an insistent interminable jingle, every food cloying, every gathering enforced by loveless convention? It could be Christmas forever.

And then, finally, it's December 26th, and we realize -- as at the climax of all solstice celebrations -- that the nightmare has limits. We don't need the sun to return all at once. We just need to know that it's turned.

In the dark, I press my hands against yours, fingertip to fingertip. Bow my head till our foreheads rest together. Beloved. Stay with me here a moment. It's all we have. But maybe it's all we need.