There were 9 hours and 15 minutes of daylight today. Many of those hours were spent wandering the streets of Brooklyn with our family full of laughs, snacks, scootering and more. When at last we turned towards home it felt as if the streets, the earth, and our bodies shivered. We have passed the shortest day of the year and can now turn towards the light.

December

The white dove of winter
sheds its first
fine feathers;
they melt

as they touch
the warm ground
like notes
of a once familiar

music; the earth
shivers and
turns towards
the solstice.

–Linda Pastan, excerpt from The Months