Solstice Again

Here's day nine's submission of NaPoWriMo (a poem a day for the month of April in honor of National Poetry Month). This one is a little early, but it's for  a competition I'm entering:

Solstice Again

A swing in space

trapped in this orbit

circles within circles

bounded by billions of stars

there, and there and there

each one alone

   on fire,

as if worlds around them

depended on it.

The cold rock that rises

on the eastern horizon

mirrors only reflected light,

makes poets turn pen to page,

lovers move close,

wolves howl.

On the other side of this giant

the fiery ball

burns.

We sit in the dark

awaiting the dawn -

the slow painful roll of a planet

cradling blue water against impossible odds.

Here, breathe this air,

measure everything:

the height of the tides,

the speed of the wind;

  - the length of the days -

mark them

against our own.