Solstice

About five hours from now, the winter solstice will arrive in the northern hemisphere. (And the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere.) This is my usual reposting of two winter-solstice verses.

First, from T. S. Eliot‘s “Burnt Norton” (1935):

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.

And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.

And second, my traditional quote of my favorite lines from Susan Cooper‘s poem “The Shortest Day”:

As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

And hope for peace.

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