Thinking about planning

Well, I notice this is December First and if I am to write one haiku every day in December I have another quarter-hour to do so. But first, this. I was thinking about painting Christmas greetings, a few years back, but found I really like photographs better. But this watercolor has a certain riotous quality I like.

Turkey soup--
she keeps asking me what
I want for Christmas

There, only 30 haiku to go. Still thinking about a resolve for next year. It should probably be something about the body. But I am thinking about a sketch a day. Tonight I found a cute little sewing machine on Craigslist, and have sent owner an email, There are TONS of sewing machines on Craigslist in case that doesn't pan out and the prices are much better than on eBay. While I was there I looked at some sets of china that people had inherited from grandmothers. One family even had grandmothers from both sides and a great-grandmother. It made me a little sad looking at all these dishes that were saved for later. Most sets were complete with no signs of wear. Only one had a lot of broken pieces. Many patterns were tiny florals in washed out colors. It definitely made me sad, like a metaphor for the passing of time.

In the perfect, perfectly small book INSPIRED NOTES; poems of Tomas Transtromer,
tramslated by John F. Deane, I found this winter poem from Sweden on pages 45 and 46.
Here is your link about Svalbard; it's very far NORTH.

Six Winters

1
In the dark hotel a child is sleeping.
Outside: the winter night
where the great-eyed dice are rolling.

2
An elite of the petrified dead
in Katarina Churchyard
where the wind shivers in its armour from Svalbard.

3
A winter of war where I lay ill
grew an immense icicle outside the window.
Neighbour and harpoon, memory without explanation.

4
Ice hangs down from the edge of the roof.
Icicles: the Gothic, turned upside down.
Abstract cattle, udders of glass.

5
On a side track an empty railway wagon.
Still. Heraldic.
Journeys in its claws.

6
Night snowhaze, moonlight. The jellyfish of the moon
floats above us. Out smiles
as we head homeward. Avenue bewitched.

                     ---Tomas Transtromer (Nobel Prize for Literature, 2011)

There is enough in this short poem to think about for weeks. Slow down and take it a phrase at a time. The icicles, the railway car, the moonlight and the cold, cold, cold. I hope to catch something very wintery in the December haiku I hope to write. And now to bed on the first night of the last month of this 21st Century year. Sleep tight; sleep warm.