A Tidings of Magpies

Going into the fix-'em-up brain factory this morning, hoping the census is low and a few of us can go home early. Or not... Whatever the day brings, I plan to have a glass of bubbly in hand at midnight yelling out a welcome to the new year and a fare-thee-well to the old one. Wishing you and yours much joy and happiness in 2011. Resolutions?...I may have to fine tune a bit, but the sentiment above seems okay with me!

by Jeanne Marie Beaumont I think about the past. I empty the ice-cube trays crack crack cracking like bones, and I think of decades of ice cubes and of John Cheever, of Anne Sexton making cocktails, of decades of cocktail parties, and it feels suddenly far too lonely at my counter. Although I have on hooks nearby the embroidered apron of my friend's grandmother and one my mother made for me for Christmas 30 years ago with gingham I had coveted through my childhood. In my kitchen I wield my great aunt's sturdy black-handled soup ladle and spatula, and when I pull out the drawer, like one in a morgue, I visit the silverware of my husband's grandparents. We never met, but I place this in my mouth every day and keep it polished out of duty. In the cabinets I find my godmother's teapot, my mother's Cambridge glass goblets, my mother-in-law's Franciscan plates, and here is the cutting board my first husband parqueted and two potholders I wove in grade school. Oh the p...

by Kenn Nesbitt A BB gun. A model plane. A basketball. A ‘lectric train. A bicycle. A cowboy hat. A comic book. A baseball bat. A deck of cards. A science kit. A racing car. A catcher's mitt. So that's my list of everything that Santa Claus forgot to bring.

by Timothy Steele Although the roof is just a story high, It dizzies me a little to look down. I lariat-twirl the rope of Christmas lights And cast it to the weeping birch's crown; A dowel into which I've screwed a hook Enables me to reach, lift, drape, and twine The cord among the boughs so that the bulbs Will accent the tree's elegant design. Friends, passing home from work or shopping, pause And call up commendations or critiques. I make adjustments. Though a potpourri Of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Sikhs, We all are conscious of the time of year; We all enjoy its colorful displays And keep some festival that mitigates The dwindling warmth and compass of the days. Some say that L.A. doesn't suit the Yule, But UPS vans now like magi make Their present-laden rounds, while fallen leaves Are gaily resurrected in their wake; The desert lifts a full moon from the east And issues a dry Santa Ana breeze, And valets at chic restaurants will soon Be tending flock...

by Michael Ryan At four o’clock it’s dark. Today, looking out through dusk at three gray women in stretch slacks chatting in front of the post office, their steps left and right and back like some quick folk dance of kindness, I remembered the winter we spent crying in each other’s laps. What could you be thinking at this moment? How lovely and strange the gangly spines of trees against a thickening sky as you drive from the library humming off-key? Or are you smiling at an idea met in a book the way you smiled with your whole body the first night we talked? I was so sure my love of you was perfect, and the light today reminded me of the winter you drove home each day in the dark at four o’clock and would come into my study to kiss me despite mistake after mistake after mistake. please note: photo art by Desert Vu .

by W.S.Merwin The long waves glide in through the afternoon while we watch from the island from the cool shadow under the trees where the long ridge a fold in the skirt of the mountain runs down to the end of the headland day after day we wake to the island the light rises through the drops on the leaves and we remember like birds where we are night after night we touch the dark island that once we set out for and lie still at last with the island in our arms hearing the leaves and the breathing shore there are no years any more only the one mountain and on all sides the sea that brought us

by Susan Elizabeth Howeby Ominous inscrutable Chinese news to get just before Christmas, considering my reasonable health, marriage spicy as moo-goo-gai-pan, career running like a not-too-old Chevrolet. Not bad, considering what can go wrong: the bony finger of Uncle Sam might point out my husband, my own national guard, and set him in Afghanistan; my boss could take a personal interest; the pain in my left knee could spread to my right. Still, as the old year tips into the new, I insist on the infant hope, gooing and kicking his legs in the air. I won't give in to the dark, the sub-zero weather, the fog, or even the neighbors' Nativity. Their four-year-old has arranged his whole legion of dinosaurs so they, too, worship the child, joining the cow and sheep. Or else, ultimate mortals, they've come to eat ox and camel, Mary and Joseph, then savor the newborn babe.

Dear Senator Voinovich, I am asking you to please reconsider a blind solidarity with the Republican Party and to vote the will of the American people and the citizens of Ohio on the Zadroga, 9/11 Bill now before the Senate. It is nothing but wrong to disallow compensation and healthcare assistance to the men and women who worked tirelessly at the WTC site for months on end and who now suffer the consequences of the toxic materials distributed there. Please honor those first responders who served our country in 2001 by assisting them in their time of need. Any more filibustering looks like exactly what it is--a silly, pathetic joke by folks who don't actually do the hard work at hand. I do not recall one senator pulling a dead body out of the rubble during that national tragedy. Your long speeches are not wanted here. Actual financial assistance is required. Make it work and get it done. Thank you for your time and thank you for a vote of support for first responders, FaceBook has ...

It's very quiet here this morning. HoneyHaired is at school taking her last exam of the quarter. Art History. Hubby's luxuriating in being back in bed after driving our grrrrl and the neighbor grrrrls to school this morning. It was my turn, but I bartered to drive extra shifts on a morning without so much snow and ice. I was thinking perhaps next summer. Birds are chattering away at the bird feeders in our front yard and I see glimpses of a fat furry tail scampering across the outside of our living room window. This fall we had a mama and baby squirrel constructing an elaborate nest outside our kitchen window. The baby would come out in the evenings at dinnertime and peek in, lifting his little paw on the screen like a hello. I don't know if it was the workmen who came to fix the gutters or a forewarning of the bitter wind that comes in from that western exposure, but the squirrels moved their home from the back of the house to a front window box where I hope they're mo...

by Andrea Carlisle Monday Figure out what to wear—white dress? Put hair in bun Bake gingerbread for Sue Peer out window at passersby Write poem Hide poem Tuesday White dress? Off-white dress? Feed cats Chat with Lavinia Work in garden Letter to T.W.H. Wednesday White dress or what? Eavesdrop on visitors from behind door Write poem Hide poem Thursday Try on new white dress Gardening—watch out for narrow fellows in grass! Gingerbread, cakes, treats Poems: Write and hide them Friday Embroider sash for white dress Write poetry Water flowers on windowsill Hide everything

by John Haines Walking home through the tall Montana twilight, leaves were moving in the gutters and a little dust... I saw beyond the roofs and chimneys a cloud like a hill of smoke, amber and dirty grey. And a wind began from the street corners and rutted alleys, out of year-end gardens, weed lots and trash bins; the yellow air came full of specks and ash, noiseless, crippled things that crashed and flew again... grit and the smell of rain. And then a steady sound, as if an army or a council, long-skirted, sweeping the stone, were gathering near; disinherited and vengeful people, scuffing their bootheels, rolling tin cans before them. And quieter still behind them the voices of birds and whispering brooms: "This Land has bitter roots, and seeds that crack and spill in the wind..." I halted under a blowing light to listen, to see; and it was the bleak Montana wind sweeping the leaves and dust along the street.

The nose knows snow... please note: photo art by Arne Dedart

by Joseph Stroud Everywhere, everywhere, snow sifting down, a world becoming white, no more sounds, no longer possible to find the heart of the day, the sun is gone, the sky is nowhere, and of all I wanted in life – so be it – whatever it is that brought me here, chance, fortune, whatever blessing each flake of snow is the hint of, I am grateful, I bear witness, I hold out my arms, palms up, I know it is impossible to hold for long what we love of the world, but look at me, is it foolish, shameful, arrogant to say this, see how the snow drifts down, look how happy I am. please note: photo art by minimanjapan