HIBERNAL winter solstice 

Sun hangs, a cold pause in dawn skies 
The new year frost heavy, holds a breath. 
Fire lit night breaks and through frozen lashes,
We seek promise from horizon’s east.

Winter’s fingers probe our gut
Twist inside like hunter’s knife.
Fat grows cold on night feast bones.



Our voices catch, hesitant in sepia dawn.
No christ child, no carols
In the chronologies that stretched
Long before we had a history.

Yet by the equinox 
Many will have withered.
In this, a world lit only by fire.

We shiver violently in our furs.
All hunt and forage, to eat or to die.

We are neolithic folk
Emerging farmers, custodians of land
We worship trees and make meadows. 
Our lives are short not brutal.

©️ david/dai fry 5th September 2019.