Solstice II

By Debra Milligan

SOLSTICE II
In mid-July 2014, Debra Milligan put to good use some claustrophobic insomnia due to an intense heat wave: she composed poems about moving. She simply wanted the heat to go away. She found it easier for her to go away -- to move to a winter mood!

Her summer of poems continued for the next few weeks, but decidedly for publication in winter. This collection of 21 poems is the logical and natural counterpart for the cycle of poetry entitled SOLSTICE.

Winter solstice is technically the astronomical event in December for the Northern Hemisphere. The longest night and shortest day take place -- but only for a moment.
The sense of moving through time, through moments -- is the impetus of each of these poems which, during creation, took the author from moment to moment in place and in time to a newer place, a newer time, and a new poem.

SOLSTICE II is a celebration of the moments of passage, in the way that SOLSTICE is a celebration of the moments of being. The solstice in the Northern Hemisphere produces the longest night and the shortest day during the moment of solstice, but this writer believes that every moment can last forever if it is fully lived.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debra Milligan
• Release date: Dec 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310843815

Debra Milligan

Debra Milligan is a novelist, essayist, poet, and short story writer. She is fluent in French and has varied interests in the fine arts, architecture, history of all kinds, music, horses, hounds, the Golden Age of Hollywood, quilting, fashion, and gardening.

Book preview

Solstice II

Debra Milligan

Copyright 2014 Debra Milligan

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved

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Table of Contents

Dedication

1 Moving

2 Lebkuchen

3 The Keepsake Box

4 Bocce

5 The Hammock

6 The Gabrielle

7 My Annabelle

8 Role Model

9 The Writer’s Room

10 The Passage

11 Uplifted

12 La Vie Est Belle

13 Whispers

14 The Castle

15 Shopping

16 Fount of Mercy

17 The Man He Wished to Be

18 Solstice II

19 Embrace Beneath the Moon

20 The Swan

21 My Brother

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DEDICATION

For Colette

To celebrate

our moments

of passage

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1.

Moving

Moving is a process

Not a one-step deal.

Only within the past week

do I feel

the freedom to

begin to move

from where I am --

this house, this place --

this space that I inhabit.

You too will

find the path

to move from where

you are

to where you will be

after what feels like an eternity,

you will suddenly

find

the road opening up

to the future.

Have the courage then

to move

to it!

3 July 2014

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2.

Lebkuchen

He talked to me

but never heard

a word I said.

His small eyes focused on

the straight-ahead

while the past

and his rear-view vision

blinkered him into

omission

of facts

whose truth

only grew and

grew.

He sought not glory

or fame,

of his last name

he was ashamed.

He hungered instead

for the love of a

father.

Becoming one