Here on this dark Monday on the last day of the year, I am sitting alone, as so often, listening to sounds of sleep and waking.

It is the moment to wonder what I accomplished over the course of the past year. And now I look back and think, Not very much.

I planted a garden. I wrote some poems.

If I were younger I would despair. Even as I am, I feel a bit deflated. I should have figured things out better.

Of course if you were to say to me, "I planted a garden. I wrote some poems," I would cheer and celebrate, and I would mean it too. How wonderful! A garden! Poems!

But the self is graceless to itself.

Still, there is nothing to be done but trudge forward. And I love being alive. And I love words and weather. Tomorrow, when I pull on my stained cloak and set forth into the wild wood, there they'll be, tucked into my willow basket.