december 3
evening, cloudy, 0°C.
throughout the day, fixing this
and repairing that
with pleasure and success,
cleaning up shattered glass
and spilled shallot vinaigrette
from the kitchen floor,
removing blueberry stains from a cloth napkin,
duct-taping a disintegrating book binding,
replacing the battery in my hiking headlamp,
all sweetly satisfying.
now someone’s ripped a hole
in the cotton fabric of the clouds—
or maybe it snagged
on the maple in dale’s yard?—
and the full orb of the moon
is shining right through
the jagged hole with
intensity and in-my-face
presence.
i know i ought to avoid
bright cool-toned blue light
this late in the day to foster a healthy
sleep-wake cycle, and
i’m very good with needle and thread—
i could skillfully put into practice that nifty
darning art using embroidery floss
that you see on youtube—
but no way am i going to pull
those raggedy cloud edges together
and stitch a patch in place.
nobody
is going to take light away
from me in december.
—dotty seiter
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~5 x 6″; oil paint, collage, ink, oil pastel,
and watercolor pencil on paper
Let’s Face It With Friends series
2025
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Notes on poem and art:
• Ted Kooser’s poems in Winter Walks are all dated with month and day of month, and I read them accordingly, e.g. I read “december 12” on December 12. This year as I (re)read them, I am studying them in ways I never have before, as a writer and student of writing, and I am offering attention to my daily walks in ways I never have before, again as a writer and student of writing. “december 3” is one of the gifts of my expanding perspective.
• Not Afraid evolved from its start in September during my Jane Davies Zoom class and now stands as part of my evolving efforts to be someone who is becoming gradually stronger in her fearlessness to experiment.
dottyseiter: now playing 
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