December 24, 2007
the season's greeting
In the dark days of the garden I avoid the tasks that would take me into the shadow land of the back yard where the day's light penetrates only a sliver's worth across the fence and the borders are brittle with last season's petrified leaf. There is no transforming snow to bury the sad scene in mounds of glistening white, and so far not even the soggy mulch of rain soaked debris. There are no birds and no sound but the whoosh of cars on the freeway, and even the squirrels are scarce, tucked in their bowers sleeping away the long hours of winter.
Last night, as I stood on the front porch at dusk, the full moon rose in the southeastern sky through winter mists, and a tiny companion, the red planet Mars, floated in the moon's halo. This morning, Christmas eve day, I walked out the front door to get the paper and happened on sunrise--the first after the longest night of the year: a gilt-rimmed bank of clouds in the southern sky suddenly breached by a blinding ray of that familiar star.
Though the earth be lifeless and still as a grave, the celestial mechanism still moves in perpetual rhythms, with and without us.
Moon & Mars photo
Sun rays photo