The Year struggles —with its own blackness. Dark, wet mush of snow under frozen rain for two days. Everything is curtained in purple grayness and ice. Fog gets in the throat. A desolation of wetness and waste, turning to mud. Only New Year’s Day was bright. Very cold. Everything hard and sparkling, trees heavy with snow. I went for a walk up the side of Vineyard knob, on the road to the fire tower, in secret hope of “raising the sparks” (as the Hassidim say) and they rose a little. It was quiet, but too bright, as if this celebration belonged not to the New Year or any year. More germane to this New Year is darkness, wetness, ice and cold, the scent of illness. But maybe that is good. Who can tell? Thomas Merton, “When The Trees Say Nothing”