Christmas Tree

[poliphilo]

I think I'll get the Christmas tree out of its box.

It doesn't seem long since I last put it away. Hell- they don't make years as long as they used to.

It looks like it's going to be twilight all day long and I feel the need for sparkly things.

In the film I watched yesterday these Polish people were going to Midnight Mass. How comforting to be a Catholic in a Catholic country! To feel the sparkle as something not merely applied but as a deep, deep thing that wraps you round.

I've been asking myself what- if anything- I'm celebrating this year. And the answer is I don't really know and I don't think it matters. Christmas is older than any religion.

The world is full of snow and wolves but we have fire.

Throw on another log. Watch the sparks fly.

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

There was a time when I insisted on a real tree but- my dear- the mess. Besides which I felt guilty about the poor thing being killed for our pleasure.

!

My nephew chopped down a little cedar for Kate and me one year, and I said I couldn't watch him murder it.

"What's the matter?" he said, like a tough guy. "Can't stand the sight of sap?"

But it is sad to see all those dried out trees after Christmas, the ones not chosen or the ones by the curb.

This way lies madness--no more weeding, no more cut flowers--and, inevitably and much more importantly, vegetarianism.

I've been putting vegetarianism much too long. It seems more and more urgently the right thing to do.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't like cut flowers. I like pot plants and cactii.

A woman I used to travel with on the bus gave me a single lemon geranium. This was about 12 years ago. Now the house is overflowing with its descendants.