Athena Dreams Design

December Views .:. Day 21 Solstice

Half-Light

Short days of winter now, and the sunlight neglects my garden.
This afternoon I pulled out last summer's tomato vines,
frostbitten and slimy to the touch.
Dead stems broken off at the soil
too frozen for the roots to be moved.

I remembered when my mother explained
that from the shortest day 
onward to spring
the light would stay longer and longer.
My brother and I would stand out in the snow
silent by the back door
aching toes 
and wait for dusk to fall,
record the time in a book
we called Secret.

It was February before we noticed a longer day
and by April
we had forgotten the vigil.

Now I stand
in the dusk again, and recall how
if we had not kept watch that winter

the darkness might never have lifted.

-Liz Kalloch

December Views .:. Day 17

 

Let the cricket take up chafing as a woman takes up her needles and her yarn.
 Let evening come.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den. Let the wind die down.
 Let the shed go black inside. Let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't be afraid.
 God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come.  

from Let Evening Come by Jane Kenyon

December Views .:. Day 15

Make your own fun.
Create your own moment in the middle of a day.
Amuse yourself all on your own steam.

Note to self: remember these things more often.

December Views .: Day 14

 

 

December Views .:. Day 10

 Outside .:. Inside

Far .:. Near

Cold .:. Warm

Put your right foot in .:. take your left foot out

yeah, and you know, you may as well shake it all about . . . 

just because you can.

 

 

December Views .:. Day 9

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over the dunes . . .

. . . a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over a pond and a stand of pines.

 

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work.

Get a life in which you are generous. 

Look around at the azaleas making fuschia star bursts in spring; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night. 

And realise that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around.

-from A Short Guide to a Happy LIfe by Anna Quindlen

December Views .:. Day 7

 

Frost in Marin on a Monday morning... a rare winter-y moment

 

 

December Views .:. Day 5

 

 

December Views .: Day 4

 

December Views .:. Day 3

Summing up the day in one photo . . .