#21 decembrance 2021

My daughter wrote the other day that they have passed the six week mark with our grandson. Her words partly read: “6 weeks of barely sleeping, 6 weeks of balancing plates of food above his little body, 6 weeks of learning each other, 6 weeks of a new identity, … 6 weeks of uncertainty and confidence, fear and love, chaos and silence.”

Six weeks ago was also the last email I had from Mikio in which he conveyed best wishes for Larkin— “A new member of the smiling family…!” He told us to rest well with dreams.

This morning I awoke from confused dreams before it was light and thought, “we did it.” We made it to the shortest day of the year under the moon’s gaze. I tell myself as it gets colder and seems grayer that I will go on walking. During the winter darkness I will watch the birds as well as listen to the coyotes and the geese. I look forward to getting back to clay work in the studio. Although it doesn’t feel like it yet the days will get longer. I will light candles and fires as a coping mechanism. Last year I began to think of time in six week chunks. Six weeks from now is the lunar new year, and a little more than six weeks after that is the equinox.

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

–Mark Strand, Lines for Winter from “Selected Poems,” © 1979 by Mark Strand