sprite writes
broodings from the burrow

December 11, 2015


advent: day 11
posted by soe 4:23 am

Today I offer you a pair of poems relating to modern-day Christmas tidings:

Published in 1977:

The Christmas Letter
    ~John N. Morris

Wherever you are when you receive this letter
I write to say we are still ourselves
In the same place
And hop you are the same.

The dead have died as you know
And will never get better,
And the children are boys and girls
Of their several ages and names.

So in closing I send you our love
And hope to hear from you soon.
There is never a time
Like the present. It lasts forever
Wherever you are. As ever I remain.

Published in 2012:

Christmas Mail
    ~Ted Kooser

Cards in each mailbox,
angel, manger, star and lamb,
as the rural carrier,
driving the snowy roads,
hears from her bundles
the plaintive bleating of sheep,
the shuffle of sandals,
the clopping of camels.
At stop after stop,
she opens the little tin door
and places deep in the shadows
the shepherds and wise men,
the donkeys lank and weary,
the cow who chews and muses.
And from her Styrofoam cup,
white as a star and perched
on the dashboard, leading her
ever into the distance,
there is a hint of hazelnut,
and then a touch of myrrh.

Finally, a quick reminder that it’s not too late to sign up for a spot in the tour to share your own holiday traditions and thoughts. Dec. 14-19 are all available.

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show, timing, and plumbing
posted by soe 3:12 am

Every Thursday, I share beautiful things from my past week. Here are three from this week:

1. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings performed on Tuesday night at the Lincoln Theatre in a show destined to go down in my top ten of all time, if not the top five. The band is tight. The backing singers, who also served as the opening act, harmonized amazingly. And Jones has an amazing energy and attitude that is apparent in her recorded music, but it springs to the fore when seeing her on stage. She strutted, she pranced, she worked her way through all the popular dances of the ’60s. She kept it real by coming out in fancy gold shoes, then asking someone to bring her her flip-flops when her feet started hurting, and then kicking those off, too, when she wanted to bop around stage. And then she opened her mouth and, oh! She belted out those songs as if not only her life depended on it, but also the lives of everyone in the building. All I can say is there’s a reason they call it soul music. The woman has just finished her second round of chemo in three years for a type of cancer that she shared her doctors tell her won’t go into remission. But, she said, doctors only know what doctors know. She declared that as long as her voice worked and she had a microphone, she would go on.

2. Every November the orchids that my late uncle gave me for my birthday several years ago start to bud. I always think that they’ll bloom for his birthday, while I’m away for Thanksgiving, but each time they hold off just a few more days and bloom instead when I get back to the office.

3. We get in touch with the landlord about a handful of plumbing issues and over the past week we’ve had our toilet, hot water, bathroom faucet, kitchen faucet, and countertop repaired or upgraded. It’s nice not to have to deal with any of those niggling problems any more.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

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