by Katherine Venn

Cam Ceiliog
Welsh for ‘cockerel’s step’, a local name for the Winter Solstice

Draw up the darkness, pull it round
yourself; let winter settle
as the light’s door closes,
narrows to the soft,
unwinking gaze
of just one
bright eye.
Rest.
The path
before you
has been marked: trust
that the light will stretch
each day by the length
of a cockerel’s step, whose crows
slough off winter, peel back the dawn.