December Days

Wrapping my arms tightly around
my knees I watch the shadows
lengthen on the sentinel fir trees,
the groping fingers of relentless
night creeping steadily up their
immovable limbs as the world
begins to bed down and another
day ends although the clock merely
heralds an afternoon hour. Caught
off guard at the sun's yearly southerly
pilgrimage I wonder anew how the days
fly and tomorrows become memories
lit by hazy golden-hour suns long
since set. Childhood summer
evenings when the sun laughed
until well past bedtime and old
dark winter days loomed merely
as a spectre of ghost stories told
around driftwood fires on the beach
seem to inhabit a tale from Arabian
Nights and I'm struck by how the
now can consume with unrelenting
absorption. The still trees lean ever
so imperceptibly into the fading light
as if to capture for a final fleeting
moment all the yesterdays that
though past are no less real in
the light of today. Balanced
on the brink of what's to
come while wrapping
arms around all that
is tightly wound
into today, I'm
grateful for
the unseen
embrace
on these
December days.