Optimism

Although we've passed the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year, there's still not much sign of the days getting any longer. Sunnier days will come, though, and ... who knows what other great things the new year may bring?!


"Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s – from John Donne’s
'A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day, being the Shortest Day'.

At midday on the year’s midnight
into my mind came
I saw the new moon late yestreen
wi the auld moon in her airms though, no,
there is no moon of course,
there’s nothing very much of anything to speak of
in the sky except a gey dreich greyness
rain-laden over Glasgow and today
there is the very least of even this for us to get
but
the light comes back
the light always comes back
and this begins tomorrow with however many minutes more of sun and serotonin.
Meanwhile
there will be the winter moon for us to love the longest,
fat in the frosty sky among the sharpest stars,
and lines of old songs we can’t remember
why we know
or when first we heard them
will aye come back
once in a blue moon to us
unbidden,
bless us with their long-travelled light."

(Liz Lochhead - In the Mid-Midwinter)