this picture

I'm only sorry I cannot take
and share this picture

of tree top frosted
in snow and light

framed in the office window.

"The Lady of Shalott" by William Holman Hunt

"I am half sick of shadows," said
            The Lady of Shalott. 

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I am glad it is December,
that the awful November
picture on my calendar has
flipped, that December's picture
is one I have seen in person.

Few calendar prints can capture
a painting, so while I am glad
the November goats are gone, I long
for the real thing whole
and complete and beautiful.

But this is a lie because
I love this smaller test
painting by the master's
own hand since he was
mostly blind by then and
couldn't paint the full
canvas himself.

I prefer this panel
because I remember
how the unraveling
threads in it sliced
through the picture, so
sharp the air between us
was nearly bleeding.

baby pictures

An old acquaintance posted a picture of his friends and their baby with anencephaly during his brief life.  The photo angles were careful not to show the missing parts of the baby's skull and brain, and I cried again for my friend and her husband, and I prayed they would have the chance to take beautiful, heartbreaking pictures like those, and I remembered my sister's baby who she never got to hold, dead before it was born, and I couldn't even cry.

In some countries rain during a wedding is considered a blessing

.
Today the outdoor
wedding photographer prays:
cloudy skies, no rain
.

Sparrow tree

On my way home, sometimes I pass this tree that looks like one of those round sparkly fireworks that explode with long streamers in all directions. 

It looks like a candied apple on a stick with chopped peanuts, although the peanuts are actually adrenalin junkie sparrows who gather there and wait for my car to pass so they can explode into planned random motion in a mad dash to reach some previously agreed on point on the other side of the street that always requires them to fly directly in front of my car. 

It's a good wake-up call if I am feeling tired, let me tell you . . .