This looks like a December day, it looks like we’ve come to the end of the way.
Willie Nelson
A Calendar of Sonnets – December
by Helen Hunt Jackson
The lakes of ice gleam bluer than the lakes
Of water ‘neath the summer sunshine gleamed:
Far fairer than when placidly it streamed,
The brook its frozen architecture makes,
And under bridges white its swift way takes.
Snow comes and goes as messenger who dreamed
Might linger on the road; or one who deemed
His message hostile gently for their sakes
Who listened might reveal it by degrees.
We gird against the cold of winter wind
Our loins now with mighty bands of sleep,
In longest, darkest nights take rest and ease,
And every shortening day, as shadows creep
O’er the brief noontide, fresh surprises find.
Here it is, December already. We mutually survived a month of war poetry, easier to stomach than the real news coming out of Ukraine. Let’s pray the madness ends soon and freedom and autonomy return to Ukraine and we can go back to loathing American democracies two year run up to the next presidential election….
I am beginning my annual process of beginning to create gifts for Christmas. It takes me about a month of weekends to keep the projects moving forward. I am keeping it simple this year; a smaller number of hand bound poetry chap books, an electronic playlist of my favorite new songs for the year and peanut brittle for the unfortunate. Peanut brittle has become in my mind my very own version of Santa putting coal in your stocking, with in my case dental jeopardy your holiday wish. Just writing it gives me the willies. I think 2022 is the year to put a fork in the holiday tradition of peanut brittle and transition to caramel corn instead. Or better yet, a mixture of toffee pop-corn dyed bright red and caramel corn dyed a muddy green.
Fourteen Lines 