I hope it's not too late ...

for Merry Christmas

Hello Friends,

The juggling has been pretty frantic over here. People talk about the sandwich years - aging parents, teen/young adult children - I begin to see what they mean.

On the one hand, it's been a year of tremendous professional development. I've ...

• had some really good reviews for my new poetry book: here, here and here

• presented a collaborative conference paper with awesome poet Emilie Collyer on how poetry gives us tools to speak about unspeakable things (like domestic violence and sexual assault)

• written a creative-critical essay about my Chinese grandmother's autograph album (out in Westerly 68.2)

It's also been a year of tremendous personal challenges. I've ...

• spent more time visiting hospitals than I ever thought possible (week after week for months with both in-laws facing serious health challenges at the same time)

• helped move my mother-in-law into a nursing home

• experienced some of the heartache that young adult children can put us through

I felt so very tired on Christmas Eve. Church was hard - at first it was just going through the motions. But by the end of the sermon, I could remember Jesus: somehow, still God's mysterious answer to all this heartache and mess. 

Here's my Christmas sonnet, recently published in the Candlestick Press poetry pamphlet pictured above:

Quick Trip to the Beach Before the Early Service
(Boorloo/Perth, Australia)

Seven fifteen. The sand is white as snow.
Our dog shoots up to the top of the dune
and turns, Are you coming? she asks How soon?  
The question wags its tail. How do we know?
Are you coming? To take this day with us,
to crest the dune,  to rush into the water?
Running, one foot sinks in, then the other.
Soft sand before the hard. Small waves discuss
arrivals. Ours and yours. What will it mean
to sing of your coming? Noel, Noel.
We crowd the pews. We wait. We feast. We spell
your name in fairy lights, like a wish, like a dream
of God-with-us: you have come, you are coming, you come
breaking the water, burning like summer sun. 

Thanks for coming along

on this ride with me,

Miriam

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