{"id":5184,"date":"2013-12-29T22:39:24","date_gmt":"2013-12-30T03:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/?p=5184"},"modified":"2013-12-31T20:45:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-01T01:45:00","slug":"it-is-december-in-the-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/?p=5184","title":{"rendered":"It Is December in the Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 29, 2013<\/strong><\/span>
\n Sunday<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

“It is December in the garden,
\n. . .<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When did December become<\/em>
\nmere loneliness?<\/em><\/p>\n

the constricted light,<\/span><\/em>
\n the year closing down on itself with all<\/em><\/span>
\n the vacancies of January ahead, leave me<\/em><\/span>
\n unreconciled even to beauty.<\/em><\/span>
\n When will you be coming back?”<\/em><\/span>
\n \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Linda Pastan, b. 1931<\/span>
\n American poet<\/span>
\n from “The Letter”<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"holi13badge-snowflake\"<\/span><\/a>It rained all day. I didn’t get to church, neither my own nor the Catholic parish of my childhood, now in a new building but still using the creche that is as old as I am. I’m coming down with something, either another cold or a seasonal depression. I’ll fall short of posting 31 times for Holidailies, but not nearly as short as last year nor the year before, so that’s something. I’m sighing a lot, over things I have done and things I have left undone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Linda Pastan’s poem is enclosed in quotations marks. It is presented as a letter, addressed to someone unnamed from whom the speaker is separated. One of the things I’ve left undone this season is the writing of my end-of-year letter, traditionally dated on the Feast of Stephen and mailed on New Year’s Eve. It’s in lieu of a Christmas card, and I haven’t done it since 2006, so there are a lot of people who haven’t heard from me in a long time. I wonder if they remember me. So many of them I want to write more personal notes to. Remember our conversation in Staples in 2008? <\/em> or I’ve never forgotten the ge<\/em>t-well gift you brought after my thyroid surgery in 1988, <\/em>or I haven’t seen you since August. When are you coming back?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n