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.