Winter Solstice 2025

Pale light precedes the dawn’s reveal,
not strong enough to light the sky.
Faint glow gives winter air a feel,
from numbing depth to aching high.

This year will be our hottest ever.
We could stop it.  We know how.
We burn the past to burn forever,
like incense for the death of now.

Against the fate of entropy
we scoff at universal law.
We build a worldwide factory
and feed our world into the maw.

Lake and shore and rising orb.
Above the shoreline rays of light
paint trees with shine they can’t absorb.
Dark lake sloughs off the black of night.

In this expectant moment, poised,
I crave the colors born of light.
Waves of flashing streaks aroused,
perform the ritual birth of sight.

Bringing the Seasonal Cards

Robin’s Seasonal Cards have been enjoyed by thousands of people over decades.  Now, for the first time, Tilted Planet makes them available for you to buy and send to your friends and kin.  Heck, send them to anyone you want to impress.

You already know that Tilted Planet Press is named after the way our planet tilts on its axis, and the way that tilt causes the seasons.  Here’s a description:

From windy groves of the checkered city
the colors and resins of summer
have ebbed and flowed away
to the tilted planet’s southern belly.
There pregnant lands turn to the sun
to celebrate the seasonal bonanza of life.
(Diverging, p. 42)

Each card bears a photo of the natural world (or sometimes the made world) on the cover.  A few have a second photo inside.  There are a lot of cards, and we’re going to introduce them in several rounds.

Some cards, especially the winter solstice cards, contain a poem and make a statement.  All the cards introduced in this round are winter solstice cards.  Other cards are blank inside, for you to write a personal message.  They’re coming.

Four cards are introduced in this round.  Three of the cards follow a long tradition of modest size with a poem in well-set type.  One takes a bold new direction, with large format and a poem written in Robin’s own hand.

We hope you enjoy them.  Spread them to the four winds.

  • Seasonal Cards
  • Planet Earth
  • Angle of Axis