
Gabrielle is a witch traveling to nowhere, searching for a home.
Luckily, she is not alone.
Have a good New Year's Eve/Day, people <3
They made this trip no matter what the weather brought. Down the icy road, over the iron bridge, turn into our driveway. I never saw the people, I don’t even know their names. But they brought gifts greater than gold…they brought joy and excitement and left it on the doorstep for us to find. The gifts under our tree were often times sparse, and the things they brought (though at times sparse themselves) made a world of difference to me and my family. Small boxes of candy, a gift or two that would double - double! - the amount of presents we had. What a thrill to hear the a knock on the kitchen door, then find a small pile of treats on our kitchen porch…it was like crafty old Santa snuck in early! That’s what I thought, anyway. Only later, after I grew up did I learn that it was a charity from the people in our town, disbursed to families that did not have so much to spend on presents and trinkets. But oh, what a delight and surprise it was. And now that I am grown up, I have made those same trips, to the same sort of houses I grew up in. It is a debt I feel I should repay. And I feel like I myself am crafty old Santa, slipping silently in and quickly out, dispersing dreams and wishes to all those good children. I never see the people…they don’t even know my name. Maybe they do. Maybe they say it the same way my parents did, with a wink and nod and a knowing smile. “Must have been Santa”, they’d say. “Must have been Santa”.
Now the moon through fog that shivers
Makes its way across the night,
Soaking melancholy meadows
In a melancholy light.
Down the road through dismal winter,
My quick carriage carries on
Where the sleigh-bell's tuneless tinkle
Is a numbing monotone.
Notes familiar in the music
Of the coachman's winding song
Go from debonair carousal
To lamenting lovers' wrong.
Neither hut nor glowing window....
Snow and hinterland... My eye
Merely marks the ciphered mileposts
Coming close and going by.