People of the Year

Hobbs & Sachtschale

I'll spare you a treatise on Time's Person of the Year and tell you instead whom I would like to have seen on the cover: my young friend, Eva. She's 16 and represents to me the spirit of perseverance, creativity, and honesty that make me glad she is on the planet. It's people like Eva who will be the fixers of the world us elders have handed down in a shabby state. She had a sudden, tremendous loss this year and I so loved what she wrote on her Facebook that I asked permission to post it.

"About Me:

I lost my dad over the summer, he died on a hike with my brother, he just got dehydrated. Dying should never be so simple, so quick. Not now. Not my father, my role model, he cannot die while I am but 16. My mom devastated, my little sister still cries herself to sleep, and my older brother who was there to see him die, is stone. It confuses me so why he remains so unemotional, is he scared by what he's seen, by trying to save his father for hours on end without water or a phone in the mountains? I do not know. But how can my father, my ONLY father, leave in a blink. He had climbed the enormous Half Dome mountain and come out smiling. And yet no matter how hard I think it through, how much I want not to believe it to be true, he died on a day hike climbing Mt. Diablo. Mt. Devil as I see it now, the monster whose dryness, and dirt took my father from me. I am strong. I am 16, I am lost, I am old, I am wise, I am withering. Not the typical things you'd find on a facebook page..."

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I would also like to mention some young people my daughter is acquainted with. She does the website at UNC's Physical Rehab. http://www.med.unc.edu/phyrehab/local-global-outreach/rehab-reader/spinal-cord-injury-sci-rehabilitation-reader-2009

The stories will inspire you. I was struck by one man's thoughts after she interviewed him, "What's the point of being negative? How does that help me?" It reminds me of an Emily Dickinson poem:

"Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune--without the words,

And never stops at all,

An sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me."

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....may the blessings of a new year of healing, joy, and cosmic encounters be yours...

Jubilate

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CANTATA

The angel choir at Yosemite

is different from what you might think.

Oh yes--it's there all right

scattered about

a small band at the bridge over Happy Isles

a chorale-sized group near Tioga Pass

a handful of soloists circling El Capitan.

Because of the hidden garden quality of this place

and because the Yosemite were such a

welcoming tribe, the angels assumed

certain of those pagan ways

(good angels can be tolerant, after all,

without contamination; fallen angels, weak,

have left Yosemite as there was too much

backbone to its beauty).

Their wings are not the mighty

unadorned style we've come to know.

These come greatly feathered and decorated

with carved bells,

mica glittery beads, slender dried vine ribbons,

bright cranberry-dyed woven ringlets,

and miniature pine garlands.

Their glory is so rare and charming, as

astonishing as a secret robin's egg

on the valley floor.

Tonight, I strain to hear

the scented wind of Yosemite,

the jubilant, innocent vibrato

of wing-blown angel's hum

shaping the sacred notes,

rehearsing the refrain,

"Venite. Adore."

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...may beauty and peace follow you this day...

"When the Snow Lay Round About"

...The images above feature Christmas in Roanoke, Eureka, at Jan Hus Church, and Fisherman's Wharf...

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Emily Dickinson wrote a poem which begins, "This is my letter to the world." I echo it by saying, "This is my Christmas card posted to the web" from the Shire, where the creek announces to the sparrows that Christmas is coming soon and they sing their carols in return. The starlight trims the skies and the silence is broken only by small creatures (advent)uring in the woods. Yes, I have caught them decorating, too! I am enclosing an old poem but new to most.

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I sit with Christmas on my lap,

my tiny gift encircled by

bits of pine and ribbon,

shy angels ever making music

on sea-blue paper;

hopefully it holds the scents

of a cheery morning,

the memory of snowy childhood years

read about in books darkly illustrated,

the sounds of tunes quietly harmonious.

I muse on how to wrap

the wishes which it brings--

how to stow away

a thousand splendid moments

of surprise and joy

that I should like to place in it,

which when opened would burst

like time-studied flowers

into an exquisite bouquet.

Go, my little messenger,

my packet of good thoughts,

spread dreams of hope and peace

and Merry Christmasses to come.

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...may the wonder of these winter nights keep you warm...