From every window, the wild world
of nature, oaks falling on each other,
beeches rising from wet ground. This
is the forest I came to live inside where
young deer sniff and find food along
my driveway’s swale at dusk. The moon
rises and lights my bedroom, drapes open
except on coldest days.
It’s Christmas Eve, season to stay home
alone and safe from a virus that will kill
another two million humans. More? My
daily practice is discernment, alert to
gratitude for a warm, dry house, pantries
and freezers full. A quiet solitude.
The great conjunction has separated again
into two planets. No star. No wise men
come with gifts. Any birth’s a wonder. I pass
this way once, as did all who came before,
make what meaning I can of the confusion
of news and weather. No roadside bombs
or break-ins here, no fear of arrest.
It’s been a wild and sentimental journey.
My troubled relatives are far, have asked
me not to call. Do I have power? Water?
I do, and I make do. I take my small thoughts,
write them with my oversized feelings.
Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist and psychotherapist, and has taught workshops on dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six self-help psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Comstock Review, Slant, Prairie Schooner, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia.