These were the old days
I’m thinking of.
Days not of family, or the holiday calendar
Days of wilderness 
of so much darkness:
a Twilight Kingdom.
 
I climb the hill you reach by crossing the street, 
where a pasture spreads upward 
simply because the houses come to an end, 
and why should there not be a field? Dry grass, thistle weed,
a wild shrub with a sharp-tongued scent – juniper! 
Round-shouldered rocks emerge from the grass like
bones from the graves of ancient creatures,
the hill people that lived here before we came,
buried by Time. But Time missed a few spots, 
distracted perhaps by some new tabla rasa
of human intervention.
 
I climb at the end of day, 
because days end so soon
and because there it was, so close: 
Imagine living where you find The Sunset Spot 
by walking down the street 
then climbing freely through the juniper field,
because you could not tell whether any living soul
dwelled in the nearest house, 
 
and you knew the only others 
who still came to the hill
and might, conceivably, dispute your visit 
were the ghosts. 
 
12.20.20
                        

The plan was to make a Christmas,
those of us who lived close by, tenants in the same 
row-house block built a world ago 
for the mill workers’ families,
because the couple at the heart of things
had families in other states 
and were not expected to make the long trip for the holiday: 
the daughter of the general, whose name nobody mentioned,  
and the woodworker, who made dulcimers 
and whose parents would likely be vacationing in the sun. 
And, who else? The jeweler, a college friend of the woodworker’s wife,
a potter who was, in that in-seeing female way, 
a friend of my heart, sympathetic, talking to plants, 
and coaxing out my words, 
while the woodworker tempted me 
with visions of change: 
Have you ever, he asked, had a job 
that made you wake up every morning feeling you couldn’t wait 
to get started?
 
No, I told him,
those ‘jobs’ don’t exist for people like me. 
Now here I am, a lifetime later,  
waking each day, in a leisurely fashion,
to find out just what job this day
has in mind.  
 
We picked holiday greens from the sunset hill, 
the potter and I, 
to decorate their apartment.
The jeweler made something twinkly, and the woodworker
sang songs to a guitar not of his making.
I read a poem, maybe.
Or maybe I didn’t. 
 
12.21.20
                        

Solstice Day: 
Just wait, 
whole seconds more of light coming tomorrow.
You can see it in the silver-blue water of the harbor
pale with the reminiscence of ice: change is in the air.
 
We inch our way around the sun,
the suave conjunction of planetary influences 
apparent, momentarily, 
from a bridge over the Schuylkill River,
until clouds reform
to swallow the moment.  
 
We arrive in the city of Daughterly Love 
to find the light charmed into strings of tiny stars, 
skilled hands brightening short days with carrot soup, 
homegrown basil, morning mimosas  
and all those other gifts of practical affection. 
 
12.23.20