Saturday, December 23, 2006

Here, There and Everywhere, Now and Then

As I leave the little blue house to finish the frenetic mixing, wrapping, pasting, ornamenting and scurrying which are required to complete our festive (but small and frugal) arrangements this year, an image of a perfect December day in another year, a day just before Yule (or Christmas) when we had a truly glorious snowfall and all the world seemed white, plumed, crystaline and fresh.

This is the way the world should look at Christmas time methinks. Whenever one looks at images like this one, she breathes in the dearest freshness deep down things (Gerard Manley Hopkins' words) of newfallen snow and the heady green perfume of fragrant cedar, pine and spruce boughs all over again.

Tthe village and the Lanark Highlands are not wearing white for Yule this year, and they don't look like this at all. There is little or no snow here, and our skates, skis, sleds, sleighs and toboggans are a forlorn lot as they lean against house walls everywhere and entreat the universe to send a little snow their (and our) way.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi kerrdelune,

I've been away from blogging for a few days so I've missed several of your posts. This one is so full of feeling that it bursts at its literary seams. You remind me of "my" cat, Tarzan. He lives to wander the huge estate, stopping in every eight hours or so just to say "hello" and to eat some food. Soon I hear him jumping up on the windowsill upstairs and slipping out the window onto the roof. I know that he adores me, as I do him. Yet the wildness of the woods is what makes his cat heart beat.