(magic)

12/23/97

We expect the magic but don’t give it room to come in.
Heart of winter
just before the new year,
only last week
I questioned why the solstice
was considered the first day
of winter,
when anyone at all could see
we were plummeting our way
into spring.
Now we are into the
farthest reaches of the cave
of dark days,
the house cannot shake its chill.
Old friends drop by
unexpectedly
and I do not bother now
to speak much,
to say the same old things
all over again, only
to bump into the same
responses I did not like
the first time,
decades ago.
Later in the day
I clean something
from the table,
who can remember now
what,
and notice how much
I cannot go down
the paths
where I have already been.
Winter.
I am grateful for the blue
page of my computer screen,
for the kindness of
enlargable type.

12/29/97