And the Earth Tilts Again Toward the Sun
What a feeling to know that every day will be a little longer now, for the next six months—in the Northern Hemisphere, at least—as the Earth tilts again toward the Sun.
This is perhaps the most atavistic sense of relief that humankind can know: Warmth and light will embrace us again, and the cold and darkness will depart.
I fled the snow and frigid air of New England, never guessing that I’d find myself again, here in Berkeley, California. Everywhere I go, it seems, I’m coming across beautiful things I hadn’t realized I’d lost. Precious friends from long ago. Memories of everything I loved and cherished here, from when I was in my early twenties through all the years of living here with my son.
It feels as if I’m moving through the world, finding gems along my pathway and restoring them to my body—as if I were a fine watch whose works had been scattered and lost.
During the past four years, with rare exceptions, I have always been the only poet in the room. And yet yesterday I sat in the living room of a beautiful Berkeley brown shingle in the Elmwood with 14 other poets, each of whom read two exquisite poems they’d written.
I’ve gone to three dance classes so far: Brazilian, jazz blues, and something called Rhythm and Motion. And with each class, some long dormant part of me came to life again.
I thank all the gods that I’m not yet too old to remember that dance is one of the three pillars of my existence, along with motherhood and my calling as a writer.
I’m at a time in life when I need to be my most authentic self, buoyed by the things that give me joy, if I’m not to be crushed by the darkness that’s fallen everywhere over the world. The darkness and cruelty. The unimaginable violence. Let’s call it out: the cowardice and stupidity.
Let us soak up every photon of sunlight we can. Let us gather every gleaming jewel of hope we can find in the air around us, in the people we love. In the people who love us.
In the life that’s stirring even now inside the bare branches of the trees. Underground where spring bulbs are already responding in their secret ways to the call of sunlight.
We ourselves are part of this—one with the mushrooms underground and the roots of the trees and the mythological underworld where everything is connected and everything transforms to something else, in perpetuity
The lovely little place where I’m house-sitting (and communing with Albert the cat) has turned out to be a poem factory. Almost every morning, I’ve woken up with the words of a new poem swirling around me—and I’ve grabbed my notebook and pen.
ELEGY Oh precious vessel that carries me within its parts: bones and blood and silken skin. What I am embodied till the embers cool and turn to coal. Pathways where my thoughts take flight while I sleep: words and scenes and meanings only half-remembered. Words without an afterlife beyond those first moments of waking, when they glimmer with the teasing light of fireflies. Is it all merely electricity? Current on. Current disconnected. You’re a poet, a mother, a wife, a friend, a writer. When what you are leaves your body, all that will remain is everything you’ve left in your wake. All the words you’ve managed to catch in your net and sift and re-confect as gifts to give to readers. All the gratitude you’ve managed to convey while you live. Treasure it now: You love and you are loved. There is an afterlife for all of us, beyond the body that carries us within its parts. Energy shifts but doesn’t cease. We dance in the light of stars that have already died, long after their embers cooled and turned to rock— and still some biological spark in us or them might flame to life again. Copyright © 2025 by Barbara Quick
Do you know someone who’s flailing now and might like to climb aboard? All of us, including me, need all the comfort and encouragement we can get now, at this dark time in human history.
A bonus poem: This was published in the beautiful journal Farmer-ish, founded and edited by Crystal Sands.
The Dawn Making myself remember, while the darkness evanesces into morning, that sunlight is not switched on and off, slowly, like an unseen chandelier with a dimmer. This light is always on. We move toward it, then careen away from it, spinning all the while. Hiding our faces in darkness. Sleeping. Waiting. Hoping. Yet no prayers are needed to make the dawn occur again. Light is movement, our own movement through the seasons of our lives: orbiting closer, then further away. We make our own days and nights while we spin. We say the sun is setting and rising again, when all the while the sun is constant, or as constant as the rocks or time itself or anything else that moves too magisterially for our powers of perception. Hopelessness is a story we tell ourselves. Light is always there for us, waiting until we come round again. Copyright © 2020 by Barbara Quick
Beautiful poetry as usual, thanks for sharing with us :) Denya
Beautiful poetry! Thank you for sharing.