gifts

Christmas Eve. Possibly my favourite day of the year. All the lovely looking forward and even its very name sounds magical. Tonight anything is possible.

The weather was not Christmassy, just cold and damp. I wrapped a few gifts, made a "famous faces" quiz for tomorrow and a sourdough loaf from the new starter. We went to celebrate the gift of life with a friend who received her cancer diagnosis on Christmas Eve, six years ago. Tonight we are going out again, to see in Christmas with other friends. Gifts money cannot buy.

I wanted to find a poem on the subject of "gifts" and the one I liked was from an anthology called "Tools of the Trade", which is given every year to all graduating doctors in Scotland. The gift of poetry!

Gift

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

Czesław Miłosz

Happy Christmas Eve, everybody :-)