Jane and I both began with Christmas cards in our morning writing. Last night, we were each with the honoring of that gift.
Jim, Jane's husband, grew up on a Quaker farm, open to those who needed to come and have a place to stay. He just inherited photographs of that farm, and is choosing from the richness, the image for their Christmas card. It is yummy to hear of the groundedness of his childhood, the holiness, as they grew their food and tapped maple trees.
Here is Jane's poem for today.
The white house with its long porch settles into the snow
The elms whose kind is gone from earth hold the winter sky
The mother in the picture, head wrapped in a simple scarf
Thin coat against the cold, smiles down at children
Whose secrets left that house.
That world and time now fit the hand
Slide between the pages of a book
All that we can catch and hold of the ineffable.
