{"id":6351,"date":"2025-12-28T22:28:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T03:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/?p=6351"},"modified":"2025-12-28T22:28:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T03:28:29","slug":"upside-down-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/?p=6351","title":{"rendered":"Upside Down In the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 28, 2025<\/strong>
\nSunday<\/strong><\/p>\n

First Snow<\/p>\n

That last day of the year
\nwe hung upside down
\non the world, air hot
\nas exhaust from the black
\ntaxis of Buenos Aires,
\nand while roses in Parque Rosedal
\nopened their fragrant mouths
\nlike a Palestrina choir,
\nthe two of you ran to the window
\ncalling, “Snow!”
\nFrom the windows
\nof all the office towers,
\nworkers tossed the year’s
\npapers into the open air,
\nfaces serious as ice.
\nDecember’s memos, the first
\nflakes, floated on the bitter wind;
\nwindshield wipers plowed the drifts
\nof November’s announcements.
\nOctober fell, with the date and hour
\nof a funeral, then September,
\nAugust, the grey decisions
\nof July, a list
\nof those to let go, jealous tangos
\nof June and May set free
\ninto the azure sky.
\nWe walked the Avenida
\nin that bright disorder,
\nthe neatly tied loose ends
\nflung open, the hoary edges of graphs
\nflaming in the sun.
\n\u2014Pamela Porter, b. 1956, Canadian novelist and poet
\nfrom The Intelligence of Animals<\/em> (used without permission, alas)<\/p>\n

It’s not the last day of the year, it’s the third day of my new year, but I do indeed feel upside down on the world. The poem above astonished me this morning. It appeared on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac<\/em> in 2008 and landed in my inbox in the daily email I get offering an archived poem, since he no longer publishes fresh material. It’s the only time Keillor featured Pamela Porter, and this poem is unavailable elsewhere. So I grabbed it, for the imagery, for the catalogue of a whole year’s worth of office papers sent flying out of windows, newest to oldest, for its direct address to her twin sons, who likely will not remember the Christmas they spent in Argentina.<\/p>\n

I’m upside down in<\/em> the world tonight only metaphorically. Today in the Common Lectionary it’s the Feast of the Holy Family. My habitual devotional, Pray as You Go<\/a>, used the Gospel for today, Matthew 2:13-23<\/a>. The lesson concentrated on Joseph’s obedience to the angel that comes to him in a dream, emphasizing the unpreparedness of the journey he is being called to. But they skipped over vss. 16-18. Although it’s the Feast of the Holy Family now, this Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s Day used to be dedicated to remembering the slaughter of the Holy Innocents.<\/p>\n

My pastor this morning did not skip that part. She read it in her soft but unwavering voice, and began her message with, “The magical moments are over.” This gospel is all about fleeing on a moment’s notice, able to take only what can be carried, seeking sanctuary. Jennifer has worked for a number of years as a missionary and community organizer in Guatemala, establishing a school for girls and overseeing modern improvements to the infrastructure of the village she served. She’s known people, mostly women, who have arrived with nothing but their frightened children and the last bit of medicine they could grab as they ran for their lives.<\/p>\n

I am not in any current immediate danger of losing everything I have, but many in my community and in the wider world of my nation are, either from racial strife, poverty, health crises, domestic violence. Tonight I made the decision to stop reading the 500 pages of self-centered musings that comprised most of what I chose to record for 2025. I’m putting it all in a sturdy carton that will go in the basement (I’m not ready to turn it into confetti, yet), and moving forward. There is work to be done. I can’t wield a hammer at a shelter that needs a new roof, but I can pray, protest, assemble meals at a feeding center, call the leaders of my local and national government to task.<\/p>\n

And write about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 28, 2025 Sunday First Snow That last day of the year we hung upside down on the world, air hot as exhaust from the black taxis of Buenos Aires, and while roses in Parque Rosedal opened their fragrant mouths like a Palestrina choir, the two of you ran to the window calling, “Snow!” From Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6351"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6353,"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6351\/revisions\/6353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}