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“May the light illuminate your hearts and shine in your life every day of the year. May everlasting peace be yours and upon our Earth.”
― Eileen Anglin

“At the darkest time of year, Lord Yule laid down his beard of snow and cloak of frost and ice to illuminate the gloom.”
― Stewart Stafford

“each morning,
the sun reminds us:
with the darkest
moment comes
a restoration
of the light.”
― Heidi Barr, Cold Spring Hallelujah

“In Extremis by Stewart Stafford

Saturnalia's trumpets sound,
The ancestral chorus song,
Time's gold web drawn back,
For the stocks' denizen throng.

Bawdy knights of the feral feast,
Daze of snoring stranger sloth,
As contagion's banquet guests,
Sipping end times' galling broth.

Bean found in fortuitous cake,
A fool crowned Lord of Misrule,
The meek's pantomimed throne,
A drone in a queen bee's tulle.

Fatted calf, societal scapegoat,
Chattels mopping festive vomit,
Charon coins on bloodshot eyes,
Execution dawn to a dark comet.

© Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Our bonfire burns brightly,
alighting our hot harvest.
Scarce seeds of winter's heat,
as its first dawn inflames.
Sprouting into a plant
that roots within my soul.
[Winter Solstice's Secret]”
― Susan L. Marshall, Wild Soul: Contemporary Classical Winter Poetry

“The Dead of Winter by Stewart Stafford

In truth, winter is the dead's season,
Their graveyard chill touches Earth,
The skeleton moon's danse macabre,
As the darkened Sun heralds rebirth.

Wild hunters of Christmas Eve skies,
Mighty Odin or Arthur leading all,
Hellhounds, fiery steeds, chase,
To feast in a Valhalla or Camelot hall.

Assemble at the hearth, my kindred,
Share unnerving tales of gothic fright,
Raised pulses as spectral guests join us,
Frayed nerves spiked on this haunted night.

© 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford