Solstice

[From Jack Kerouac's Home At Christmas, first published in 1961]

"[…] now the Snow King has laid his drape upon the world, locked it in new silence, all you hear is the profound higher-than-human-ear screaming of snow radios bedazzling and electrifying the air like orgones and spermatazoas in a Universe Dance ― They start black specks from heaven, swirl to avoid my gaze, fall white and ploppy on my nose ― I turn my face up to the sweet kiss of Heaven ―

[...]

Somewhere above, the coalblack crow is yawking, cr-a-a-a-ck, c-r-a-a-ck, I see the flop of raven twit limbs battering onward through treetop twigs of aeril white to a hole in the heart of the forest, to the central pine and pain of my aching desire, the real Christmas is hiding somewhere from me and it is still, it is holy, it is dark, it is insane, the crow broods there, some Nativity darker than Christianity, with Wise Men from underground, a Virgin Mary of the ice and snow, a Joseph of the tress, a Jesus like a star ― a Bethlehem of pinecones, rocks, snakes ― Stonewalls, eyes ―

[...] 

Everything is saved.  There's heat and warm joy in my house.  I linger at the window looking in.  My heart breaks to see they're moving so slowly, with such dear innocence within, they don’t realize time and death will catch them ― not now."