Today is the shortest day, the day when the dark surrounds us, early and late. Here we are keeping the fire burning and preparing a room for Angie and Karna, who will arrive in the dark. On the table, ribbons and tissue for the packages to go under the tree we cut up the Malaspina trail last Wednesday. It’s been waiting in the woodshed, leaning a little like someone tired after a long journey. We’ll bring it in the day after tomorrow. This way, it will still surprise me when I come downstairs on Christmas morning, the Chieftains singing the old carols. So today is the shortest day. How lovely it was the other night to sit at our table with dear friends to celebrate a birthday with the candles burning, their blue wax dripping onto the cloth. I sent my parcels east and on Christmas morning I’ll see the faces of those I love on the screen, showing me what I sent, what others provided. When I read this Rilke poem this morning (translated by Robert Bly), I thought, yes, a circle of light for everyone, because the dark is there, potent as ever: a great energy.
You darkness, that I come from,
I love you more than all the fires
that fence in the world,
for the fire makes
a circle of light for everyone,
and then no one outside learns of you.But the darkness pulls in everything:
shapes and fires, animals and myself,
how easily it gathers them! —
powers and people —and it is possible a great energy
is moving near me.I have faith in nights.
...Theresa Kishkan 