Solstice Sacrifice

Swirls of candy-cane peppermint red-and-white
barber-pole stripes like the snow streaked with blood
trodden to slush in the cold of the darkest night
heat from the butchering thaws frozen mud.

Slaughtering reindeer on solstice at morning
meat for the wintertime, blood for the sun
bringing the light back, the new year a-borning
life for the dark times: that's how it was done.

We have new rituals to keep in December,
a green tree that burns with electrical lights
but still there's a truth that our carols remember:
an old sacrifice on the longest of nights.

--for Poefusion. Also for Terry Pratchett, may the Almighty preserve him.

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