The sun is spent

At this time of year, especially on cloudy days like today, I realise quite how important light is to me. As it happens today is celebrated as St Lucia's day and used to be thought the shortest day of the year, although the solstice will not come for another week. John Donne's poem 'A Nocturnal on St Lucia's Day, Being the shortest day' tells us

The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world's whole sap is sunk....

This how it feels, in the northern hemisphere, but I remind myself that from now on the days will get longer and the light will get stronger. Last night in the Occitan class we learnt a seasonal verse:

Per Santa Luça los jorns creisson d'un pè de piuce
Per Nadal d'un pè de gal
Per l'an nòu d'un pè de buòu

(At Saint Lucia the days lengthen by a flea's foot
At Christmas by a cockerel's foot
At New Year by an ox's foot)

I'm looking forward to the New Year and the ox's foot. In the meantime I try to create as much light as possible, putting these candles on the seasonably dark background of our Welsh slate coffee table. St Lucia the Christian martyr is often rather gruesomely portrayed holding her eyes on a tray after they were torn out, but I prefer to see this day and its pagan origins as the beginning of the new year's light. And as I write this a glimmer of sunshine is finding its way through the clouds....the candles have worked!