: Happy Solstice everybody.

: The shortest day of the year is over.
: From now, the days are getting longer.
: More time for paddling.

: Mike Savage
: South West Cork

Here's one for the pagan Irish in you Mike.

Solstice

Through the long dark chambers in the hollow hills,
Pagan voices, echoing in the corbelled spaces,
Vanished in the twilight of unremembered souls,
Forgotten rituals left their distant traces.

In clever corridors, now closed to winter chill,
Bats roost where ancient men once mourned,
Till the Sun would shine its benediction still
On the darkest day when, waiting for the dawn,

The solstice priests and pilgrims in the night
Would gather in the mound's sacred demesne,
At the deep recess that had not seen the light,
To witness that dark places can be blessed

On this most hallowed day of all renewal;
In the majesty of the fulcrum of the year,
At the nadir of heaven's sacred jewel
The patient ghosts of the newly dead drew near

And, through the sure compelling power of the rite,
In sorrow, cherished loved ones bound up tight,
In the alchemy of the dark and light,
The souls of the departed would take flight.

Et