END OF YEAR WALK

This year,
yes, even this year
has drawn to its close.

-Buson

Happy New Year everyone!

HOLIDAY DINNER

Friends and family
bringing gifts, food and laughter-
sweet taste in the mouth

FRESH BAKED CHRISTMAS COOKIES
from finish to start! I made only four kinds this year, just the old standbys.



My husband insisted that I include this shot that he took: a rare Cookshop Cook sighting!



I have a thing for cookie cutters. This is only a small percentage of my large collection! Here they are all washed and dried and ready to go into action.

Merry Christmas
Happy Hannukah
Joyful Kwaanza
Blessed Eid
Sparkling Diwali
Sacred Solstice
and everybody have a WONDERFUL NEW YEAR!!!

DECORATION
I wonder if it is possible to draw any conclusions about families by looking at how they decorate their Christmas trees? Visiting a friend recently, I realized that her tree was almost completely feminine in nature. Peopled with angels, fairies (like this one), pixies and ballerinas; draped with ribbons, pearls and glittering crystals it is a girly-girl tree if there ever was one! And females do outnumber the males in that household. In my own home, where I am the lone outpost of the female...our tree has a more masculine look: mostly Santas, gnomes, toy soldiers and gingerbread men hanging out here, and red and blue shiny balls.

So, after thinking about this for a while I went out and bought myself a sparkly-winged long-tressed Christmas tree angel! I haven't yet had her infiltrate our He-Tree, but I'm slowly working up the courage.

WINDFALLS

Picking up apples
I scrabble in the cold grass-
winter licks my neck

HOLIDAY HAT

Boy in a red hat-
morning sun shines through the cloth,
coloring the wall

IN CONCERT
I love hearing all the different instruments singing together. Of course I was alert to catch one sweet voice in particular. P is a first violin but there were no solos. I think I may have caught just one recognizable tone or two, hanging in the air. Anyway, the orchestra performed beautifully at their Winter Concert!

PEACE LIKE A RIVER

For this is what the Lord says: I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of nations like an overflowing torrent; you will nurse and be carried on her hip and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.

Isaiah 66:12-13

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What a beautiful verse! Such a rare and wonderful God-as-a-mother metaphor. But despite all the hymns and songs to the contrary, I've never felt that peace is really a primary association with rivers. They so often seem to be rushing past, filled with dangerous rocks and broken branches and strong currents, flooding their banks and wreaking havoc on the countryside. Peace like a still pond I could understand, or even, peace like a shining puddle after a storm! But then you wouldn't get the beautiful extended metaphor of overflowing blessings pouring upon the land.

Anyway, this is a shot I took yesterday of the Brandywine River in Greenville, Delaware.

THE QUEUE

In the dark, we wait-
standing among strangers, all
trying to get home

O THE CHICKEN AND THE IVY...

I was at a party recently with my neighbor who runs this featherheaded flock, and we started chatting with some people who had not met Fay before but knew of her chickens (they're famous in our neighborhood.) "Ah, yes, The Chicken Lady! And now, who are you?" one said, turning to me politely. That was easy: I'm the woman who lives next door to The Chicken Lady!

EIGHTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY

Dorothy's birthday:
cake and face aglow, her friends
lit up with wishes

EARLY MORNING GLORY

Moist chill in the air
sunrise bee clambers stiffly
from her morning bed

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Taken about a month and a half ago. We had an unusually warm autumn, but now the flowers are gone.

STOREFRONT STUDY

By and large books are mankind's best invention.

-Ursula K. LeGuin

NEW YORK CITY NIGHT

Horns and sirens sing
flocks of people surge past-
lights pulse in the dark

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Just back from New York. As usual after such a day I am tired but at the same time fizzing with impressions, feelings, ideas, dusted with residual energy from a city that never sleeps....

Well, so much for that. I'm off to bed now.

FAVORITE ORNAMENTS

Each year we greet them:
gold bear, black cat, silver cross-
christmas memories

SMOOTH

The smooth green chair back
against the paler green wall-
such beauty and peace.


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Taken in the cafe of The Brooklyn Museum in October.

COLD

but how warm they look-
the holly berries, flushed red
under hoods of snow

ANKHS A LOT
Yes, we made ankh-shaped sugar cookies the other day! A warm-up for the big Christmas Cookie bake-a-thon which is fast approaching. I bought son H an ankh cookie cutter a few months ago when I was at the Brooklyn Museum because he's in an Egyptian phase and their gift shop specializes in all kinds of Egypt chachkas. Finally we found some time to try it out...delicious and festive! I am sure if the ancient Egyptians had thought about it they'd have made ankh cookies too, don't you think? Hey, maybe they did! Here's the recipe.

ANKH COOKIES

Cream together:
1 cup softened butter
2/3 cup sugar

Beat in:
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine, then add:
2 1/2 cups sifted white flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix ingredients till well-blended.
Chill dough 3-4 hours before rolling.
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
Roll and cut. (Sprinkle with colored sugar at this point, if you want.)
Bake 8-10 minutes or until gently colored.
Cool on a rack.
Enjoy!

Makes about two dozen cookies, depending on the sizes you cut.

PRIMITIVE URGE

days shorter, colder-
first fall of snow- shivering-
we root and hunker

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For anyone who doesn't want to gain weight, this time from just before Halloween to just after New Year are what I think of as The Danger Days. Our bodies seem pre-programmed to want to pile on last-minute fat to get us through winter into spring. In the northern hemisphere, the seasonal changes alone probably instigate a lot of these urges (less light triggers depression triggers over-eating in many people for instance.) Our culture supports this basic instinct with holiday after holiday that necessitates food and drink and plenty of it. Coincidence? I don't think so.

It is so interesting how humans take the primitive urge and refine it, smelt it into a different yet still recognizable form. I'm not complaining, just pondering. I'd sure rather be a human with a plate of Christmas cookies and a glass of eggnog in my hand than one of these pigs fattening up to be the Easter ham!

RED SHIRT
"It's not you, George," said Daisy, "It's just that...that awful red shirt makes me a little nervous!"

SURPRISED BY WINTER

Silently
the first snow falls,
leaving us speechless

CONTAINER

inside the balloon,
the breath of my youngest son-
warm life briefly held

To see more haiku on the theme of container click on the One Deep Breath website.

AUTUMN WIND

Light dies: suddenly
a howling dragon flings branches-
leaves, hair in my eyes

EVENING GLOW ON THE HUDSON RIVER

I, the merest speck,
peer through a small glass eye, see
the large world glowing.

Yesterday was the artist's reception for a show I am currently in at Sherry French Gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. A beautiful day and here is the stunning view from the gallery's windows. For more info on that show, click here.