Although I’ve just sent many e-mail holiday cards, I may have missed some friends across the country and the planet. I’ve been working on a new desktop computer, and struggling to keep track of it all between my former Thunderbird e-mail program and my new web-based program. If you’re reading this and are a friend I missed, please let me hear from you. May everyone who visits my blog enjoy a wonderful holiday season.
Below, I’m sharing a haibun I wrote recently, “passing forward” a neighbor’s unexpected gift:
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Winter Stars
My neighbor fills her winter garden with oaktag cut-outs of red and yellow stars—hangs them from her bird feeder or glues them atop the planting sticks she’s left in the dirt between withered blooms. Yesterday, she knocked on my door, and I opened it to find her hands overflowing with stars—each hole-punched and threaded with yarn—a new constellation for these days of early dark.
“These are for you to hang places,” she said simply, knowing of my need for joy this Christmas season. As we smiled and hugged one another, I received them in my cupped hands. Now stars dangle from my doorknobs and brighten shadowed corners—an unexpected gift of light.
moon splinters on the river—the glint of ice floes
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