Each hour’s a gift to those who take it up.

lights-christmas-dreamy

A pane of glass is a kind of compression of distance, enabling us to get up close to what we want but not permitting us to take it into our hands. We want it all, this life before us: the miniature Christmas village lit by a steady joy; the doll that in our arms would never grow old; the tiny train that, tooting, speeds away and always returns. Yet our lives are not beyond this breath there on the chilly glass, but of that breath, and in this life the hands in our mittens are never really empty. It is all around us, free, this wonderful life: clear jingle of tire chains, the laughter of ice that breaks under our boots. Each hour’s a gift to those who take it up.

~ Ted Kooser, “December.The Wheeling Year: A Poet’s Field Book


12 thoughts on “Each hour’s a gift to those who take it up.”

  1. Yes, and like that pane of glass which separates and seems to protect us, our pain can also insulate us.
    Let’s not shelter ourselves so much.
    Stay awake and alive, friends.
    Vincent

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