Day After Solstice

Here we are, awake; and it hasn't been
            a century! We've emerged from sleep,
not some kind of spell that strikes the land 
            with famine and rot, so all who travel in it
turn into animals or stone. From this point on, 
           you say, we can count on the days beginning 
to get longer, the nights gradually shrinking 
           upward at the hem. At least we have most
of our teeth and rejoice that we can smell
            the coffee, the toast when it burns. 
If I'm crying in the kitchen,  it's from the sting 
            of chopping onions, marvelous mask for what 
will always be the never-endingness of sorow. There are 
           days of terror followed by one, incandescent hour. 
That we can't have everything is true, the same way
           dawn breaks, until finally it doesn't.