Merry jollies, Max. It's blazing hot days where I am (presently in
Mundaring, WA) and chirping nights. I can't imagine Seattle in winter. MY
geography is all to putty at the best of times!
Now, after travelling here, I now have to buy up many gifts in a day or so
- and wrap them for Christmas - without help! Help!
Cheers across the oceans -
Andrew
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On 22 December 2015 at 13:59, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> At first I thought this was a poem echoing the tone of Dylan's 'not
> dark yet/but it's getting there' but I now see yours is a seasonal
> complaint, Max. Is holding out your version of raging against? It does
> sound sometimes like you feel the dark will never again lighten. The season
> can indeed be a shocker of course. Recommend Central Victoria where in
> Daylesford they stretch to a couple of bits of tawdry tinsel round the odd
> lamp post but otherwise things proceed much as usual which suits us up
> here.
>
> Bill
>
> On Tuesday, 22 December 2015, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/sciencefair/2015/12/20/winter-solstice-first-day-of-winter/77667242/?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003
> >
> > S.A.D. - Counting
> >
> > Counting down the days
> > not till Christmas
> > but down down
> > into dark darker darkest
> >
> > the dread winter solstice
> > shortest day
> > longest night
> > turning then at last
> >
> > towards a touch more light.
> > Can I hold out?
> > So far I have
> > always almost -
> >
> > whether in mild
> > New Zealand
> > extreme Scotland
> > unpredictable Australia
> >
> > (south-eastern region,
> > where frosts are few
> > and canny folks take
> > Queensland winter breaks).
> >
> > Now the notorious
> > rain-all-year-round
> > city of Seattle
> > obliges with softness
> >
> > (last winter; this too)
> > but like so many places
> > gets all festooned
> > in festive follies
> >
> > wreaths of plastic holly
> > standby of many years
> > mostly spent stored away
> > or the latest in lighting
> >
> > a blitz of glittering
> > glitziest ritziest
> > childishness intended
> > perhaps to trigger
> >
> > relapse to infancy
> > when Santa seemed
> > real, the Christmas
> > tree dizzyingly tall.
> >
> > (Brief digression here
> > to dismiss the Southern
> > midwinter without
> > festival feast or festoons.)
> >
> > What would it mean
> > not to hold out?
> > Refusal to get out of bed
> > till lunchtime?
> >
> > Resorting to panicked
> > bookings to some
> > subtropical resort?
> > Killing December hours
> >
> > browsing catalogues
> > of cruise liners sailing
> > for the Equator
> > with duty free liquor,
> >
> > poolside shenanigans?
> > All that, plus refusal
> > to shop for seasonal
> > gifts for significant others.
> >
> > Yesterday in the PO
> > a woman with twenty
> > parcels took their snap -
> > large family, she said
> >
> > ambivalently. Send them
> > off quick, I said, force
> > them to reciprocate
> > in good time. Of course.
> >
> > Now the last new moon
> > of the year swells nightly
> > towards fulness, softening
> > my dread of the dark.
> >
> > It’s an ad for something -
> > trust in recurrence -
> > this too will ripen
> > and decline, and then...
> >
> > My abhorrence
> > of the dark itself
> > will wane, just before
> > Christmas, the forced
> >
> > good cheer, the burial
> > of a dire old year,
> > resisting again Seasonal
> > Affective Disorder.
> >
> > Thank you, festive light
> > in every window but mine
> > plaintively bright.
> > Till twelfth night please shine.
> >
> > [season’s greetings ’15-'16 from Max…]
>
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
Books available through Walleah Press
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