
Monday Morning Musings:
“Stars, in your multitudes
Scarce to be counted
Filling the darkness with order and light. . .”
–“Stars” from Les Misérables
“So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.”
Susan Cooper, “The Shortest Day”
“Even if all life on our planet is destroyed, there must be other life somewhere which we know nothing of. It is impossible that ours is the only world; there must be world after world unseen by us, in some region or dimension that we simply do not perceive.”
–Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle
The shortest day approaches,
we celebrate with tales and light
in centuries-old traditions,
we gather, talk, and drink
to drive the dark away
to drive the dark away
we count the stars
on the shortest day,
they fill the sky
with order and light.
With order and light
soon we’ll celebrate
eight nights of Hanukkah
to drive the dark away,
remembering
remembering, my mother says
girls were not sent to school,
but her mom knew where everything was
in their store, she could find the peas
the cans had pictures
the cans had pictures
and she knew the prices
she could add the figures quickly–
order in this world
like stars in the sky
like stars in the sky
we make patterns in our brains
memories form
and we fill in the gaps
stories of might and if
stories of might and if–
is the movie a cautionary tale?
What happens when we mess with nature?
Or is it tale of mothers and children,
variations on madness and guilt?
Variation on madness and guilt,
describe a host of myth and legends
along with greed, anger, and lust,
in animating stars, clouds, and trees
we try to make order of our world.

We try to make order of our world
in patterns and statues and stories.
In art and poetry and song, we transform
and celebrate the light within
and without
and without this ability
what would we be?
Worlds unseen, other dimensions
beyond the stars, but here now,
we drive the darkness way
we drive the darkness away
with love and light and food
with sisters and sister-friends
with children and mothers and kin
we let the light in.
It’s been a busy, crazy week, and I apologize for being so behind in visiting and reading other blogs. I’m finishing reviewing my copyedited book manuscript. There have been many calls and text with my sisters about my mom’s care. We had to suddenly go to my mom’s when an aide called out sick. While there, we discovered that PBS was showing the 25th anniversary concert version of Les Misérables, which my mom and I both enjoyed. We did a “Nightmare Before Christmas” tour for my early birthday celebration with younger daughter—it turned out to be a fun evening of talking and drinking. We visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Christmas Village.
Merril’s Movie Club: We saw Little Joe. It’s a quirky film about a woman who develops a new plant that she names for her son Joe. But perhaps there are unintended consequences. It’s filmed in bright colors and with a percussive soundtrack. Emily Beecham won best actress at the Cannes Film Festival. We liked it, but I may not sniff a flower for a while.
We’re on the penultimate episode of The Man in the High Castle on Amazon Prime. It’s so good—and kind of frightening to think of what could be, what might have been, and where we’re headed with the present administration.

From “Designs for Different Futures” Philadelphia Museum of Art
And a more peaceful image to leave you with

Winter trees form a bower outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art–Merril D. Smith, December 2019