If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
Anne Bradstreet
I have been so busy that I haven't had much time to write. This year I wanted to give special gifts to those who stood by my side during the last months. I finished my last piece of embroidery tonight. I've also been baking and photographing. Add work, playing harp, plus decorating and that gives the bird's eye view of what I've been up to.
Tonight I took my annual holiday light walk. Usually I take a friend along, but given all the busyness of late, I felt a need to just walk under the stars and reflect. Several ideas for poems danced through my head, but tonight I will let a gifted poet share what is in my heart and mind...
Lute Music
Kenneth Rexroth
The Earth will be going on a long time
Before it finally freezes;
Men will be on it; they will take names,
Give their deeds reasons.
We will be here only
As chemical constituents—
A small franchise indeed.
Right now we have lives,
Corpuscles, Ambitions, Caresses,
Like everybody had once—
Here at the year's end, at the feast
Of birth, let us bring to each other
The gifts brought once west through deserts—
The precious metal of our mingled hair,
The frankincense of enraptured arms and legs,
The myrrh of desperate, invincible kisses—
Let us celebrate the daily
Recurrent nativity of love,
The endless epiphany of our fluent selves,
While the earth rolls away under us
Into unknown snows and summers,
Into untraveled spaces of the stars.
Before it finally freezes;
Men will be on it; they will take names,
Give their deeds reasons.
We will be here only
As chemical constituents—
A small franchise indeed.
Right now we have lives,
Corpuscles, Ambitions, Caresses,
Like everybody had once—
Here at the year's end, at the feast
Of birth, let us bring to each other
The gifts brought once west through deserts—
The precious metal of our mingled hair,
The frankincense of enraptured arms and legs,
The myrrh of desperate, invincible kisses—
Let us celebrate the daily
Recurrent nativity of love,
The endless epiphany of our fluent selves,
While the earth rolls away under us
Into unknown snows and summers,
Into untraveled spaces of the stars.
On this the eve of the longest night of the year, I am grateful for and celebrate that the darkness of the last months has tutored me in it's necessity so that the beauty of life may shine even brighter.
Mediaeval Babes, "In Dulce Jubilo":
Mediaeval Babes, "In Dulce Jubilo":
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