Happy Tenth Day of Christmas! I was back at work today, just as if Christmas were over. As a first day back after the holidays, it was not too bad. I'm fortunate at present in that most of the people in my workplace are professional and cordial, and no one is unpleasant. I have been in workplaces where it is otherwise.
There is a poem by Donald Hall, I think, called "otherwise." If I recall correctly, it lists all the pleasant, ordinary things he did and remarked after each that it might have been otherwise. This was because he had recovered from a serious illness. Well, I googled, and I was wrong. It was not Donald Hall, but Jane Kenyon who wrote "Otherwise." They were partners--married? Further googling. Yes, married. They both were poets. Jane Kenyon is dead now, for some years. What year was it that I went to the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College, and Donald Hall was there. He talked about Ms. Kenyon, who had died very recently, and how much he had loved her, how much he missed her, how hard it was for him right now to be away from the home they shared. He read her lovely poem, "Let Evening Come," which was also read at her funeral. In the story of their relationship, they both were seriously ill at different times. He recovered, but she died. Her poetry is beautiful.
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