Christmas in Cedar, not long ago

Painting by Linda Alice Dewey.

Linda Alice Dewey’s painting “Christmas in Cedar, not long ago” is a collaboration with Anne-Marie Oomen’s poem, “Solstice”

Solstice  

By Anne-Marie Oomen

Was it wrong to cancel the moon

so near the Solstice when light 

slinks off by mid-afternoon? 

It comes on now, that other light, 

light without source, faded except 

for the butcher’s legacy sign

coupled with the spicy scent 

of sausage over snow.  The market, 

still open, lures you in: local cheese, 

range of fine wines, too fine—merchant 

succumbs to dabbling with you, and talks

of the good old moon.  Such things,

once common, are now short-lived: 

families arrive and leave, vendors 

once thriving, disappear, and at that

window of the Emporium, a necklace 

glimmers over a plastic Santa Claus, 

leftover from a farmer’s auction. 

To cancel the moon means to pocket 

the lined box, means getting lost 

on the way home, means veering,

finding your way by the bark 

of a neighbor’s dog. It is not the path 

you thought to trod. But you do. 

Sun or moon, it does not matter;

what matters is getting home in winter,

turning onto that street of old names,

believing for that moment in the light 

that has no moon, we may enter a room,

offer the small gift strung like stars. 

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