Solsticial

Sorry about the weekend silence - my home computer had disappeared under a mound of Christmas-related 'stuff' and, in the course of a trying weekend, I was unable to excavate it. Bryan has written eloquently enough about Pre-Christmas Claustrophobia, and the weekend before the Day is always, in my experience, when it hits its frenzied and insane peak. Every year I like Christmas less. Every year - recession or no recession - the consumerist feeding frenzy seems yet more deranged and deranging, leaving not a moment free for quiet or reflection, or even pleasure. By the time the Day arrives, most of us are too exhausted by it all to enjoy much about it (apart from the falling asleep bit) and it takes days to recover - by which time most of us are back at work. Somewhere along the way, a glimmer of truth and hope is provided by the religious observance of Christmas - a light shining in the consumerist darkness...
Of course, half the problem is that this is so absolutely the wrong time of year to be caught up in anything much more demanding than eating and falling asleep. It was the shortest day yesterday, and my vital spirits are at a solsticial low - indeed I suspect I'm nursing a seasonal flu. Never mind eh - here's a lovely, even consoling December poem by Geoffrey Hill:

For rain-sprigged yew trees, blockish as they guard
admonitory sparse berries, atrorubent
stone holt of darkness, no, of claustral light:

for late distortions lodged by first mistakes;
for all departing, as our selves, from time;
for random justice held with things half-known,

with restitution if things come to that.