"Midwinter Day," as Alice Notley noted, "is an epic poem about a daily
routine." A poem in six parts, Midwinter Day takes us from awakening and
emerging from dreams through the whole day-morning, afternoon, evening,
night-to dreams again: ". . . a plain introduction to modes of love and
reason/Then to end I guess with love, a method to this winter season/Now
I've said this love it's all I can remember/Of Midwinter Day the
twenty-second of December//Welcome sun, at last with thy softer
light/That takes the bite from winter weather/And weaves the random
cloth of life together/And drives away the long black night!"