Christmas Time is Here

Christmas time is here

Happiness and cheer

Fun for all that children call

Their favorite time of year 

Snowflakes in the air

Carols everywhere

Olden times and ancient rhymes

Of love and dreams to share

Sleigh bells in the air

Beauty everywhere

Yuletide by the fireside

And joyful memories there

Christmas time is here

We'll be drawing near

Oh, that we could always see

Such spirit though the year

Oh, that we could always see

Such spirit through the year...*

* A Charlie Brown Christmas

Snowy Woods

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Seventeen Days of Thankfulness

I am thankful...

 for days of fog and mist and the quiet therein 

for getting lost among the trees

for beautiful butterflies

for cold morning ice on the window and that first lung-clearing intake of frost when you step outside

for the sheer joy in that laugh

for Ferris Wheels and carnival magic

for history, personal and universal

for that rarely captured smile and a boy who wears his emotions closely

for moments when hard work pays off

for ghosts

for three little princesses I know and one prince charming

for the small things and the ability to see them

for finding something beautiful hidden in nature

for the hope of finding someone to walk through life with

for a girl and her horse riding fast into the setting sun

for finding a place to belong

and for Tom Sawyer moments in idyllic settings and the wild imagination of childhood.

Winter Weary

It's spring.  You wouldn't know it by walking outside.  Last night icy rain fell in sheets over the still frozen ground.  The boy cut the grass on Tuesday.  It wasn't really that long and had only started to come up in patches of mostly clover.  I think he just needed to do something that made him feel like it was warm outside.  The little one was grateful all the same.  Her soccer ball glides smoother through her homemade goal, now that the grass is level.  It also helped us find the remaining Easter eggs.  Analiese came to the door with three yesterday. A pink one with yellow dots, a blue one with black zebra print, and a metallic purple one.  How had we missed those?  I think we hid too many.  Even now staring out into the rain soaked backyard I think I see a pastel pink one in the crook of the old tree that's starting to blossom.  I know by the little green buds that's it's here; it just doesn't feel like it.  I even picked daffodils on Wednesday.  It's really a foolish flower to pop up in the frost. I put them in a jar by the window.  A little sun to kill the drafts.  I think it helped a little.  We're all chilled, winter weary, and in desperate need of an outdoor meal on the weathered old picnic table that bows in the middle, making the plates wobble when you pick up a bite of potato salad.  It's supposed to warm up next week.    That will be nice.  The boy needs to wade in the creek and find snakes.  And the middle child needs to work her fairy magic, building rainbows, planting flowers.  I need to read outside.  I've worn holes in all of the seats from too much reading indoors.  Only the little one won't notice much of a change.  She doesn't feel cold.  She's an island of her own personal sun.  Thirty degrees or seventy degrees.  It's all the same to her.  Her toys ride nicely in her bike basket either way.

Poets Take the Weather So Personally

Well, we finally got our snow.  A solid snow.  Solid for the South anyway.  It started falling fast right before bedtime.  That, of course, meant that bedtime had to be delayed.  We played until we were numb and wet through.  Then we had a cup of contented cocoa before falling, each of us, into our own winter dreamland.  When we arose the world was white and calm, in a serene way that only snow can bring about.  We played until we were numb and wet through.  We crammed everything we had been longing to do into a few hours.  A snowman, a snow fort, a snowball fight, snow angels, and sledding.

Two years.  That's how long we waited for snow.  Some weeks earlier the boy had decided that if it didn't snow this year we should move to a place where winter was more predictable.  I told him that I'd take it under consideration.  Then it did snow, so there was nothing to consider.  Or so I thought.   As I sat at the window watching them play in the snow, my heart was content.   I wondered about the snow and the magic it has to calm a noisy mind.  How is it that a blanket of white can stir imaginative thoughts and clarity?

This place has not been particularly kind to me.  In fact, it's been a big bad bully who's thrown a few compliments my way to justify the meanness.  I waited for the snow.  I longed for the snow.  I needed the pure, clean, and cold to clean the slate.  It had not snowed since I separated from the porch swing.  Now with the divorce final, I needed the death of winter so that new life could grow.  (I'm a poet.  We take the weather very personally, you know.*)  I stared out at the snow and felt me heart calm.  But I also felt it begin to tug in new directions.

It's time for new direction.  I don't know where or when or how or what.  But it's time for a move.  And I don't even know if that means leaving this city.  All I know is that I need a fresh start.  Me and my three, we have endured.  It is time to settle.  I feel it in my very soul.  I need to be in place that is more predictable.  Our future is officially under consideration.

*J.D. Salinger - "Poets are always taking the weather so personally."

Ice

Melting ice

like etched crystal wedding gifts

broken

bits left for the stomping

of table top dancing

and destruction

laughter

like the light reflecting

on etched crystal wedding gifts.

Solstice

Dust of Snow

-Robert Frost

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart 

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.*

The Winter Soltice is upon us and I am grateful.  Every year I long for this date.  I love winter.  I love the quiet in the cold.  And while I know it's not snowing, I'm hoping that it soon will.  My soul needs a good snow.  A white blanket of peace fallen to the Earth is exactly what my unsettled heart needs.  Welcome winter.  As the trees sleep so shall our spirits, in reflection, as we await the spring.


* Chris had to choose a poem to memorize and recite in class this week.  This is the poem he chose.  It's one of my favorites, so I was thrilled.  Though I should say that the only reason he chose it was because it's only two stanza's long and he wanted one about snow because he is wishing for snow as much as I am.   His teacher set up the classroom like a "coffeehouse" and they all snapped after each poem.  What a cool teacher!   I really wish it wasn't completely humiliating for parents to go into a middle school classroom.  I really wanted to see him recite this.  My boy, stretching his cultural limits a little more each day!

Three Gifts From My Window

Cold, late autumn rain falling beside red and yellow leaves in the big, backyard where the carefree play of childhood is spilled out in fairy stories and football tosses.

Three Gifts Government

I am thankful for the right to walk along paved paths that wind through small city parks and the freedom to throw my head back to curse loudly at the sky before I fall to my knees in prayer.

A Gift Gathered, A Gift Given, A Gift Good

strawberries, blueberries, apples, and pumpkins,

 all gathered with the givers of

small blue rocks, a giant red leaf, and notes scrawled with hearts;

 with dirt under their fingernails and marker stains on their shirt sleeves, 

they are leaf pile jumpers and big mess makers

and sprites, the whole lot;

and good, oh so good, with lovely hearts that show big love.

Three Gifts That Start With N

Nautical dreams with ships that sail calm seas, swaying peacefully under

Night skies lit by a full, luminous moon and stars upon which a

 Namesake boy makes wishes, looking so much like my father

Personal Movement

I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman,
the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things
come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go,
not one lasts.

- Autumn Movement by Carl Sandburg 

Alice

A few nights ago I had a dream that has lingered in my mind for the length of a week.  It was one of those vivid dreams where everything seems so real and yet so impossibly unreal.

Before me is a table filled with mismatched china and floral patterned tea cups filled and spilling tea on a white linen tablecloth.  Scattered around the spilling tea are cakes on pedestals, pies on silver rimmed plates and brightly painted sugar cookies stacked higher than the vase of wilting flowers at the center.  And I realize that I've prepared the meal, but I can't enjoy it.  At the head of the table is the one who broke my heart and to his right is his friend.  They're both speaking but it's complete nonsense.  They're laughing as if what's being said is funny, but I don't think it's funny at all.  Then I realize that I'm holding a small wooden cage with a rabbit inside and to either side of me are my children quietly eating.

The cat paws at my hand.  She tells me she needs to go outside.  So I pull back the covers and shiver as the cool air hits my shoulders.  I follow in a half sleep state, still thinking about the little rabbit in the cage.  I open the back door and the cat disappears into the darkness.  Halfway across the yard, she turns around and all I can see is her yellow eyes looking back at me.

Another table, an angry woman.  Gone are the hazy grays and fragile china.  Here see bold hues, strong lines.  The whole scene is more feeling than visual landscape.  The table is strewn with paper and books stacked too high.  She can't seem to be pleased.  No matter what I do she needs more.  And around her are others who need more.  I'm frozen in an overwhelming state of inadequacy.  The mad woman grabs the rabbit from my hands and dunks the poor creature in my coffee.  I frantically pull him from the cup.  Pathetic, dripping wet, his pink nose twitches wildly with cold.  My smallest sprite comes from behind me and takes the pitiful rabbit from my hands.  She gently wraps him in my scarf and tucks him away in his little wooden cage.

The cat wants back in and the alarm will go off in minutes, so I get up and fix a cup of coffee. I shower, dress, and make pancakes, all the while replaying the bizarre dream.  I can't make sense of how real it all felt.  I feel silly for trying to analyze my overactive imagination so I leave it alone.  I go upstairs to get the girls up, make lunches, and then we leave for school.   While sitting in the barely moving traffic, I suddenly understand.  "It was a WHITE rabbit!", I say aloud.  The girls perk up, "Where? I don't see a rabbit."  "No, it's in mommy's mind.  I think I've gone mad."   "Oh, OK", they say, settling back into their seats, as if this is the most normal thing in the world for their mother to say on the way to school.

He was the Mad Hatter.  She was the queen.  Even the cat played her part.   But I'm fairly certain that I'm the wrong Alice. I'm standing before the looking glass and all I see is the impossibility of it all.  The story has been written wrong.  It's too much nonsense and far too confusing.  I don't care what you think, I'm not the Alice for this story.  The pathetic, white rabbit is coffee stained and I can't take care of it.

There's a small hand in mine, the one who wrapped the poor white rabbit in my scarf.  She writes me notes and leaves them under my water glass beside my stack of books.  Then she flips through the yard, smiling as she plays.  And her sister brings me rocks and bright red leaves and shines like a star.  I told the boy about my dream.  "I think I'm going mad," I say.  He laughs, "Probably, but remember, 'we're all mad here' so it's OK."

Weekends Are For...

              ...laughing and chatting with your sister while flying through the air on a Ferris Wheel.