Tis the year’s midnight, and I’ve been reading John Donne to light my way in the pale squibs of light during the seven brief hours of these short days. Without snow, those daylight hours are drab, dun; life is shrunk,/Dead and enterr’d. Poetry is to my soul what lotion is to my skin: a balm and lubricant to soothe these parched days when the worlds whole sap is sunke.*
In addition to poetry and candles, it’s also a time for family, festivities, and feasts. This year marks our twentieth Christmas in this house, and for a tree, we’re using the top of a blue spruce we planted the year we moved in. In those first years, it was merely decorative; for a long time, it provided privacy from the road; more recently, it cast a gloomy shadow on the house. I’m using the boughs to deck the halls, bringing greenery and fragrance indoors.
The feasting is part of every family gathering, though this year, with neither ice for skating nor snow for sport, it could get out of hand if we didn’t have a Project in mind. Projects are part of most festivals around here, when we make shameless use of guest labor. Last year, our plans to expand a stonewall with a houseful of strong, young bodies at Thanksgiving were snowed out; it seems as if this barren Christmas may be our chance.
These festivities won’t start for more than a week, which I’ll use for reflection as I sort and sift the drifts of typescripts, receipts and correspondence collapsing in heaps on my desk and shelves, a process that allows me to evaluate the work I’ve accomplished this year, and set my writing goals for next. I’m sure I’ll also write during the next two weeks, just as I dream in words while I sleep.
But I don’t publish my dreams, and for the next two weeks, I won’t be posting here. Tis the year’s midnight, and just as midnight throughout the year finds me at rest, so does this hour of the year.
Best wishes to you, my readers.
May we meet again, in the light of the New Year.
*From John Donne’s poem, A nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day, Being the shortest day
Gerayn - Where my feet are says
Wishing you the Happiest Holiday Season, Deborah
Deborah Lee Luskin says
You, too, Gerayn! Thanks for stopping by.
Rose says
No snow? Sounds like this is unusual for the time of year. But I envy you the short, dark days. Here in Australia the days grow longer and mercilessly hot. As I write this (at 7.10am) the cicadas out in the bush are already a deafening chorus. I’ve only experienced one northern hemisphere winter, in London, with only the briefest dusting of snow. I was well and truly over those grey days by March.
Here is part of an Australian Christmas carol to add to your poetry reading (Orana means “welcome”):
Friar birds sip the nectar of flowers
Currawongs chant in wattle tree bowers
In the blue ranges lorikeets calling
Carols of bushbirds rising and falling
Orana! Orana! Orana to Christmas Day.
Merry Christmas Deborah.
Deborah Lee Luskin says
Rose, thank you for your down-under perspective and for the lovely lyric, filled with native birdsong. I was once in Edinburgh on the shortest day. It rained, and drivers kept their headlights on to cut the gloom that passed for daylight. Winter – real winter – in the north is something else, and glorious with deep cold and dry snow.
Orana to winter! All best.
Karson says
Please keep thriwong these posts up they help tons.
bobbe ragouzeos says
As always, it is so good to hear your voice . I look forward to hearing from you after your break.
Deborah Lee Luskin says
Thanks, Bobbe. It’s lovely to hear from appreciative readers – from any readers, really. Otherwise, I’m just typing in the dark!