December 4, 2025
Thursday

Another poem from Anam Cara, this one “birth-day,” by Lucille Clifton, 1936-2010, typed out in its entirety because no one phrase captures what reading it sparked in me this morning:

birth-day

today we are possible

the morning, green and laundry-sweet
opens itself and we enter
blind and mewling.

everything waits for us:

the snow kingdom
sparkling and silent
in its glacial cap,

the cane fields
shining and sweet
in the sun-drenched south.

as the day arrives
with all its clumsy blessings

what we will become
waits in us like an ache.

When I saw Lucille Clifton’s name and the title in the daily email from Anam Cara (at 3:30 am, the break in my typical divided night), I initially thought, oh yeah yeah, the one about running into a new year. I’ve known Clifton’s work for a long time. Her “homage to my hips” (video here) is an anthem for many women my age, including me. But when I opened the link, I discovered a poem heretofore unknown to me. It’s about hope and change and forward motion. I read it, twice, and then went back to sleep.

Four hours later I woke again and moved into my daily routine: take my pills (the morning ration, consumed in three stages and checked off in my planner), brewed the First Cup, took out the trash (Thursday is Trash Day — my planner always has “Gather ye trash bags” in the priority box for Wednesday), and then sat down with the J, writing “December 4, 2025, Thursday, 7:30 am/32° — now what?”)

And I made decisions. The December holly-jolly-fa-la-la won’t be terrible emotional ordeals for me, I already know that. Though I miss Ron, the family members we spent those times with do as well, and remember him along with me, assuaging grief with the music of our grandsons’ laughter.

It’s the fin de l’annee (“end of the year,” The Feast of Stephen to New Year’s Eve) that looms, large. Our relationship began in that period, with an arranged first date and then a New Year’s Eve spent “burying 1982” with wine, cheese, Mannheim Steamroller and Steeleye Span and Canadian Brass on the cassette player (“boom box”) he brought along, sitting on the floor of my living room, stopping long enough to watch the ball drop and sealing 1983 with a kiss. Thus did the King of the Introverts set up a tradition of not going out for revelry and noise among people addled by too much yuletide cheer.

I’m taking myself away for a private retreat at a place (not a retreat center) I know well, for four days of reading, writing, praying, and, weather permitting, walking in some places dear to me, figuring out what I will become.

While researching Lucille Clifton today I came upon a delightful poem that speaks to current events. I’m sure you know about the hapless raccoon in Virginia who (yes, he rates a “who” instead of a “that”) found himself locked in a liquor store and proceeded to enjoy what was available. As it happens, Lucille Clifton addressed such a matter. Here’s a bonus poem for today: