Merry Christmas!

to do:

make pigs in a blanket
deck the halls
eat, drink, be merry
find the pickle
sleep

Pileated Woodpecker

This big guy was in our yard this morning, devouring the fir snag. So festive with his gallant red mohawk.

flicker call

last night we cut paper snowflakes and hung them over the door. i wore my favorite blue dress. snow falling now. my voice is gone. today i will drink coffee and make christmas presents, watch the snow fall on the firs outside, my paper christmas tree on the wall untouched. i have a paper life, i cut myself, outside my real life moves like a robert frost poem. tomorrow i will wake early and walk to the bus station, speak to children with my gravelly voice. i never sound older than i do now, paper thin.

Early December in Croton-on-Hudson

by Louise Glück

Spiked sun. The Hudson’s

Whittled down by ice.

I hear the bone dice

Of blown gravel clicking. Bone-

pale, the recent snow

Fastens like fur to the river.

Standstill. We were leaving to deliver

Christmas presents when the tire blew

Last year. Above the dead valves pines pared

Down by a storm stood, limbs bared . . .

I want you.

Beginning

by James Wright

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.

The dark wheat listens.

Be still.

Now.

There they are, the moons young, trying

Their wings.

Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow

Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone

Wholly, into the air.

I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe

Or move.

I listen.

The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,

And I lean toward mine.