A Mid-December Musing

a Santa suit-red snowflake-white and pine tree-green . . . my rainbow glistens Like a rainbow after rain, the colors of the Yuletide season appear for many of us to warm our souls in the cold of winter. This year my yultide rainbow began to glisten brightly right before Thanksgiving Day when snow swirled down rather unwelcomingly, for my son and his family from Oregon were driving in to see us at that time. No sooner had he arrived when he turned around and left, just one day after our small family feast at a buffet restaurant. How lovely that time was though -the food, the banter, and the after-dinner games. After that brief time with my son's family, I spent the next few weeks mailing off Christmas cards and shopping for gifts, etc. Today I take note that the "big day" is exactly one week away. However, I will not have my son with me, for he lives too far from us, and his visits are infrequent. Consequently, getting together my children and their family members at one time and place is a very special and rare occasion. As rare as seeing a double rainbow! After New Year's Day, I will return to work, my small vacation time expired. Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day and Easter, Tax day!! Then many birthdays, anniversaries, my mid-summer one-week break, and Halloween will lead me back again to the time of Thanksgiving. I look forward eagerly to them all; then I turn around, and they are gone. . .gone as swiftly as those two days that passed when I got to be with my son at my last Thanksgiving time. Days, weeks, months, seasons, years. . . they come and they go - endlessly revolving through the four seasons of the lives of all humanity. As I keep marking off my calendar, I see those celebrations as the evanescent rainbows of my life and also the greatest paradox of life! The longer we live and relish life, the closer we come to its end. seasons of rainbows in a century will be . . . all but forgotten Dec. 18, 2019 for Caren Krutsinger's December Or January Haibun Contest Poetry Contest