Saturday ~ December 26, 2015

Reason upon reason
to be thankful:
for the fruit of the earth,
for the fruit of the tree,
for the light of the fire,
and to have come to this season.

( Charles Reznikoff, 1894 - 1976 )

Friday ~ December 25, 2015

Because we wanted much that year and had little. Because the winter phone for days was stayed silent that would call our father back to work, and he kept silent too with our mother, fearfully proud before us. Because I was young that morning in gray light untouched on the rug and our gifts were so few, propped along the furniture, for a second my heart fell, then saw how large they made the spaces between them to take the place of less. Because the curtained sun rose brightly on our discarded paper and the things themselves, these forty years, have grown too small to see, the emptiness measured out remains the gift, fills the whole room now, that whole year out across the snowy lawn. Because a drop of shame burned quietly in the province of love. Because we had little that year and were given much.

( Joseph Enzweiller, 1950 - 2011 )

Thursday ~ December 24, 2015

Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart... filled it, too, with melody that would last forever.

( Bess Streeter Aldrich, 1881 - 1954 )

Wednesday ~ December 23, 201s

Aren't we enlarged
by the scale of what we're able
to desire? Everything,
the choir insists,
might flame;
inside these wrappings
burns another, brighter life,
quickened, now,
by song: hear now,
it cascades, in overlapping,
lapidary waves of praise? Still time.
Still time to change.

( Mark Doty, 1953 -    )

Tuesday ~ December 22, 2015

Avarice, greed, concupiscence and so forth are all based om the mathematical truism that the more you get, the more you have. The remark of Jesus that it is more blessed to give than to receive is based on the human truth that the more you give away in love, the more you are. It is not just for the sake of other people that Jesus tells us to give rather than get, but for our own sakes too.

(Frederick Buechner, 1926 -   )

Monday ~ December 21, 2015

It is something to be able to paint particular picture, or to carve a statute, and to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day - that is the highest of arts.

( Henry David Thoreau, 1817 -   )

Sunday ~ December 20, 2015

A flurry of leave at at the window
like those calender pages flying
in old movies
to indicate time passing,
and it is passing,
though where it's going
nobody seems to know.
Something is always lost
and something found -
an earring or the key
to a certain door,
to some second self.
I watch as energy and matter
bow and switch places,
as last year's leaves appear
and disappear again.

( Linda Pastan, 1932 -   )