Post-Equinox Post

I like traditions. With friends, they're fun, light-hearted bond-forming, but our family ones are best... Like tribal rituals,, but disparate enough that they dont become An Institution, or annoying.

Every equinox, mum sparks up some kind of bonfire and we let loose a chinese lantern or two. This year, my genius mother produced a bin with holes in it, proudly referring to as "The Incinerator" as it sneezed flames erratically over my machete of a marshmallow-stick.

I did have to admit that an oversized turquoise cableknit and very litte else may not have been the best choice for such an event, especially after I was mockingly informed by my fire-prodding youth of a sibling; "You do know you can't get tanned from this don't you?"
At which point my answering sheepish murmur provoked a familiar outburst of isn't-Beth-a-fool! communal hysterics. Not a tradition I hold dear :P ...

In the summer, Mum and I vw-golfed it up to Priddy. Our mission was twofold: 1. to make a nice memory, and 2. to cold-bloodedly confuse any astrologists that might have happened to be looking into space and marveling at the existence of two new stars flickering inexplicably over the Mendips.

                                        We succeeded in the first. 

Here's the resulting poem,,

Mum's Solstice

Watching the pretty lights across a solstice sky,

Night-visions, tripping on a vivid, sunset high...

We shiver, goosebump-frosted as we watch and wait.

A dot-to-dusk, a star-struck slate

Whose age-old pinpricks, ancient relics, tell

A myriad of moments past, immortalized in shells

Of burnished gold.

The night, a parasol of black and blue, unfolds

Its purple shadow-thumbs, to numb

The last impassioned glances of that Cassonova, Sun!

Aglow with grateful lust, he winks "goodbye"

To cloud-smudged lover, mesmerizing Sky!

Ablush with pink, her fingers cling

To melting memoirs of their sweet, midsummer fling...

And as the pastel pigments blend

We cast our lonely lantern to its distant, dancing friends.

It stumbles, trips-and-tumbles onto life-inflating breeze

A single splutter, but inhales the hit with ease;

Our fizzing jelly-fish

Our true light-hearted vessel lifts

Our hearts, our souls; its dizzy, drunken drift

To cold, pathetic fate will come,

But in our minds, our poem, glimmers on, and on, and on...