Scarce starlight in the double glowing of the night sky remind us the Soltice is really about light, long days of summer so easy to live with, encouraging us to forget caution and prudence, and, like sky night, burn our candles at both ends.
A fine young gentleman from Housatonic, Garrett Norton, 21, died tragically in an automobile accident. Worse still is the coverage of the accident by the local newspaper. Most difficult for me, and I hope for all of you, are the gratuitous pictures published under the guise of being part of a news story.
I am not a man of great or constant religious belief, though I wish at times I were. But I do have faith in the proven dogma of the seasons, of sun and rain and warm and cold passing and coming around again and again over long, slow time.
Maybe a pyre would be a better word for my annual pile gladly given over to the flames. Much of what was burned were mistakes. Not mistakes I’d made by tossing the stuff on the fire but mistakes in judgment, the detritus of dreams I chased too far for too long.
Some tribes believed that wolves were men’s souls. Imagine them, circled around a campfire, startled, doubtful, apprehensive, and thrilled at the same time as they listened to the pack abroad in the January moonlight.
In young adulthood, you imbibed your way past any sense or inhibition, danced yourself into a good lather, and got to kiss your neighbor’s wife at midnight.
The petition must be first-rate since its authors are prominent community members. My question [about the authors of the petition concerning the future of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District] is which of us gathered to anoint them to their prominence? I do know neither I nor anyone I know was consulted.
