CULTURAL PROMPT — WHAT DOES DECEMBER MEAN TO YOU?
December
Birthing stars
Expectation married to patience, opposites attracting, extrovert and introvert, divorced from so much as a quarter note of pessimism despite anthems of statistics sung by choruses of experts in the aisles
Seeing in the dark of the unknown solely moons and worlds awaiting exploration Suns and stars illuminate the Way, a Camino
beyond Santiago de Compostela into Saturnalias celebrating galaxies well within reach — if only we knew not to panic at wrong turns into black holes — our connection to mission control failing
instead allowing the nebulae weaving our souls to guide us
©Jenine Bsharah Baines 2020
This poem, as you may have already realized, is a bit of a departure for me. More stream-of-consciousness. Deliberately so, which I heightened by using commas (and capital letters) only for clarification and no periods.
Commas and capitals as stops on our itinerary to take stock of where we are.
No periods because the Camino, the spiritual pilgrimage, never ends, even in December, even with death.
David Whyte wrote a wonderful poem about this.
Meanwhile I am a firm believer in rebirth. Christmas as Easter. Saturnalia as a feast of light in the darkness.The Universe ever-expanding out there, yes, but also within us.
Interesting factoid: folklore has it that Compostela comes from “Campus Stellae”, Stars Field. The Compostela is the certificate pilgrimages receive in Santiago after walking the Camino.
Thank you, Øivind H. Solheim and the team at Blue Insights for the prompt:
Thank you, dearest readers & fellow star trekkers for joining me.
