<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; display: block; color: rgb(20, 24, 35); font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.32px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">In the Grip of the Solstice</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; display: block; color: rgb(20, 24, 35); font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.32px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; "><br></p><p style="margin-top: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; display: block; color: rgb(20, 24, 35); font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.32px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Feels like a train roaring into night,<br>the journey into fierce cold just beginning.<br>The ground is newly frozen, the crust<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><br>brittle and fancy with striations,<br>steeples and nipples we break<br>under our feet.</span></p><div class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; color: rgb(20, 24, 35); font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.32px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; ">Every day we are shortchanged a bit more,<br>night pressing down on the afternoon<br>throttling it. Wan sunrise later<br>and later, every day trimmed<br>like an old candle you beg to give<br>an hour’s more light.</p><p style="margin-top: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; ">Feels like hurtling into vast darkness,<br>the sky itself whistling of space<br>the black matter between stars<br>the red shift as the light dies,<br>warmth a temporary aberration,<br>entropy as a season.</p><p style="margin-top: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; ">Our ancestors understood the brute<br>fear that grips us as the cold<br>settles around us, closing in.<br>Light the logs in the fireplace tonight,<br>light the candles, first one, then two,<br>the full chanukiya.</p><p style="margin-top: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; ">Light the fire in the belly.<br>Eat hot soup, cabbage and beef<br>borscht, chicken soup, lamb<br>and barley, stoke the marrow.<br>Put down the white wine and pour<br>whiskey instead.</p><p style="margin-top: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; ">We reach for each other in our bed,<br>the night vaulted above us<br>like a cave. Night in the afternoon,<br>cold frosting the glass so it hurts<br>to touch it, only flesh still<br>welcoming to flesh.</p><p style="margin-top: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; "><br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>- Marge Piercy</p></div></body></html>