Will we sharpen our old bones on midwinter's whetstone?

The yew trees outside the windows are padded with snow: a real winter fall for a northern solstice, as crisply dark as a longest night should be. The sky is still too overcast to look for the last meteors of the year, whose radiant is in the pole-pacing bears. I can believe in their candles streaking out of sight, like the sun nudging back that fraction of a low gold flare. Happy solstice! So time spindles on.