Ooze of Light from Sun and Moon

This morning I watched online as crowds at Newgrange gathered to experience the coincidence of a winter solstice and lunar eclipse only to be disappointed when snow clouds prevented the blended light of sun and moon from seeping though the passage tomb.

Out the window a blackbird chases a robin from the bread I’ve left under the plane tree that looks famished in its peeling bark. The temperature is -10C. What’s happening to the weather?

I read Gerry Dawe’s poem ‘Solstice’, composed for the winter birth of his daughter:

‘I see the ice outside fall / and imagined the fires burning / on the Hill of Tara ring …’

A year flickers to a close. To-morrow the days will start to lengthen once more. On the brink of another beginning.