solstice

at perihelion, clenched in Winter's grip
the sun--'though close--is impotent to warm
our axis of rotation has a tip
it doesn't meet the sun's plane at the norm
this solstice, photons graze our planet's face
where energy and matter get to meet
the solar flux skids mostly into space
without delivering a lot of heat
but pause to think of the Antarctic night
when we're admiring bodies at the beach
unbuffered by a sea, devoid of light
our orbit's at its unenlightened reach
this week, we pass the bottom of the trend
as calendars denote the Autumn's end