Monday Morning Musings:

But still, the Light

“But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”
–from Martin Luther King, Jr., Final Speech: “I’ve been to the mountaintop”

In bleak January,
the unclothed trees shiver,
and the sun has cast herself
into the ice,
but still, she rises.

The fields are rimed with frost,
and all paths seem slippery,
a time for caution, not over-confidence,
yet, through shadows,
some rise–

there’s a crossroad, a moment
when the tipping point comes
and a heart so engraved by
the acid of hate implodes–
or heals–scared with gold,

kintsugi hearts, with their own beauty
like winter landscapes—
and you watch as the geese soar up
past the morning moon, working together
to find the blue

that you saw in dreams,
that you see now,
and you think of ancient dead stars,
ghost-broadcasting faint photons,
not infinite, but as close as we can imagine,

the luminous beacons of time,
guiding us, appearing like heroes
that glow with incandescent fire,
not eternal, but with voices that continue
to transmit, like pulsars, blinking, spinning.

tilting toward tomorrow.

I used some of Jane’s Random Words for the poem. And yes, Jane, more stars. They slipped in while I was writing, and I couldn’t ignore their twinkling, or Dr. King.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I’m not a big fan of holidays such as this where people pay lip-service to someone while ignoring what he or she stood for the rest of the year. (Example, anyone lauding MLK who also seeks to suppress voting access.) However, I was moved by Heather Cox Richardson’s letter today on heroes.

Between the weather and work, I didn’t go anywhere this week, except to get a shingles vaccine. My husband and I both went. We know how to have an exciting date.😏 I got a few walks in though.

It was a good week for soup and bread.

We finished Season 2 of the wonderful spy series Slow Horses on Apple TV. Imagine if George Smiley and his circle were mostly inept, but sometimes stumbled into something that they solved. Then we watched Black Bird, also good but disturbing, as it involves a serial killer. The disturbing part comes with the serial killer’s recounting things that viewers do not see, but can imagine. Excellent performances.

On Saturday night we watched Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix), which was thoroughly enjoyable. I think this one is better than the first. Since it seemed like “a popcorn movie,” I made some! And we ate it with a finger-food dinner.