The winter solstice night was nearly finished,
The sun was making signals in the east,
The power of the darkness was diminished,
The terror of the longest night decreased.
I sat there in the kitchen eating cornflakes,
The kitchen drapes were parted just a crack,
I vaguely heard the rasping cry of corncrakes
Heralding the dawning out the back.
Then suddenly the sun’s first rays appeared
Over Paige’s ironmonger’s store,
And something happened that was really weird,
Something I had never seen before.
A shaft of light shot through the parted curtain,
And hit my mural of three ducks in flight,
I turned the light off, for I was quite certain
Darkness would augment this wondrous sight.
The first green duck was all illuminated,
A leading light in each and every sense,
I bit my lip, transfixed and fascinated,
The atmosphere electrified and tense.
Then, as the sun peeped higher over Paige’s,
The light did seem to travel down and right,
Inch by inch it crept in tiny stages
Until the second duck came into sight.
I barely breathed in hope and expectation,
For nature still had not revealed her all,
Not satisfied with this illumination,
Remorselessly it travelled down the wall.
I sensed the third and final duck get nearer.
Excited, I could hardly bear to look.
At first, a beak and then a head grew clearer,
And then the soaring body of the duck.
Three ducks shone forth from out the inky blackness,
Haloed in the winter solstice sun.
And though they stayed quite stationary and quackless,
They shouted that the longest night was done.
The next few days, just as the sun was dawning,
I waited for the sight to reappear.
But the only time it happened was that morning
Of the Druids’ ending of the year.
What men were these who built this humble dwelling
Way back in August nineteen ninety three?
What astronomic secrets were they telling,
These fabled architects of destiny?
The sun was making signals in the east,
The power of the darkness was diminished,
The terror of the longest night decreased.
I sat there in the kitchen eating cornflakes,
The kitchen drapes were parted just a crack,
I vaguely heard the rasping cry of corncrakes
Heralding the dawning out the back.
Then suddenly the sun’s first rays appeared
Over Paige’s ironmonger’s store,
And something happened that was really weird,
Something I had never seen before.
A shaft of light shot through the parted curtain,
And hit my mural of three ducks in flight,
I turned the light off, for I was quite certain
Darkness would augment this wondrous sight.
The first green duck was all illuminated,
A leading light in each and every sense,
I bit my lip, transfixed and fascinated,
The atmosphere electrified and tense.
Then, as the sun peeped higher over Paige’s,
The light did seem to travel down and right,
Inch by inch it crept in tiny stages
Until the second duck came into sight.
I barely breathed in hope and expectation,
For nature still had not revealed her all,
Not satisfied with this illumination,
Remorselessly it travelled down the wall.
I sensed the third and final duck get nearer.
Excited, I could hardly bear to look.
At first, a beak and then a head grew clearer,
And then the soaring body of the duck.
Three ducks shone forth from out the inky blackness,
Haloed in the winter solstice sun.
And though they stayed quite stationary and quackless,
They shouted that the longest night was done.
The next few days, just as the sun was dawning,
I waited for the sight to reappear.
But the only time it happened was that morning
Of the Druids’ ending of the year.
What men were these who built this humble dwelling
Way back in August nineteen ninety three?
What astronomic secrets were they telling,
These fabled architects of destiny?
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