SOLSTICE

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In winter the mountains stand taller than they do

in summer. Or they seem to. They’re not blocked by leaves

and the bare trees feel slighter, shorter, more frail.

 

On clear days we bundle up, sit out and watch them 

change with the light 

as the day turns toward darkness.

 

We think about their weight and age, and how many

now-extinct animals 

have walked across their bodies

 

and how many now-extinct humans. 

 

*

 

Sometimes these days I yearn to sit still 

and listen for the voices of the lost, moving 

 

through the mystery surrounding me, the texture of the air—

 

and I feel a larger breathing, for a moment, this moment

when I fear I’m losing 

all I care about, deeper 

 

than my own small life. So I bow in gratitude

again and yet again to the mountains, who will be here

 

just as they are, when we’re so long gone

even our language is forgotten.

 

*

 

Here is the body of a bear, stretched

out in the snow. Here is the body

of a deer—but it looks like a person, half-buried

in the leaves. Here is the body of the hawk 

 

you admired yesterday 

as it sat in the hemlock 

leaning to leap at the squirrels stealing 

 

seed from the feeder 

at the window you love 

to watch from when the pain becomes bigger than your body, 

bigger than the span of life you’ve lived.

 

*

 

Here is a squirrel rising up into the sky.

Here is the hawk letting go as he flies,

 

the squirrel falling, still alive, as the hawk

swoops down, catches it again and squeezes

tighter. Here is a house filling slowly 

 

with snow, the furniture buried, the sofas 

and nick-nacks along with the books disappearing. 

 

Here are the wounds and the scabs and the dreams. 

 

Let me go now, you call, let me vanish.

 

Here are the bare trees leaning closer, seeming

to listen to your voice as though it were a song,

 

quivering a little in the still afternoon

as though they were cold too, and waiting.

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BIO: 

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​Michael Hettich’s A Sharper Silence, published by Terrapin Books in 2025, has been called a “heartfelt, heartbreaking collection” (Marie Harris).  His previous book of poetry, The Halo of Bees: New and Selected Poems, 1990-2022, won the 2024 Brockman-Campbell Book Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society. His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared widely in many journals and anthologies, and he has published more than a dozen books of poetry across four decades. His other honors include several Individual Artist Fellowships from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, The Tampa Review Prize in Poetry, the David Martinson/Meadowhawk Prize, a Florida Book Award, the Lena M. Shull Book Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society, and the inaugural Hudson-Fowler Prize from Slant magazine at the University of Central Arkansas. His website is michaelhettich.com.