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December, not yet Christmas, or Hanukkah.
Only a few lights lit in the streets,
no sleigh drawn by reindeer in shopwindows.
Instead of snow, a dark pouring rain
to dodge as passersby reject us.
No spruces, but sycamores with their white cankers.

It may be surprising not to link all of this to darkness,
emptiness, fear. Yet the dark isn't dark,
water isn't anxious, and indifference isn't an offense.
So long as we are alive, we might know, now and then,
an inexplicable peace: it happens. Maybe this is the joy
saints mention, the kind that asks for nothing,
it's merely careful, pressed to the earth, far from the stars.


Dicembre

Dicembre, non ancora Natale, e neppure Hanukkah.
Ancora poche luci accese nelle strade,
nessuna slitta con renne sui vetri dei negozi.
Al posto della neve pioggia nera battente,
a cui sfuggire mentre i passanti ci respingono.
Niente abeti, ma platani macchiati dal loro cancro bianco.

Può stupire non associare tutto questo alle tenebre,
al vuoto, alla paura. Eppure il buio non è buio,
l'acqua non è disagio, né l'indifferenza un'offesa.
Succede a volte fino a che siamo vivi,
di provare una pace inspiegabile. Forse la letizia
di cui parlano i santi e che non chiede niente,
è solo attenta, premuta sulla terra, distante dalle stelle.
from the book HISTORIAE / New York Review Books
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The poem serendipitously shares a very relatable sense of contentment found in the final, dark part of Fall. 

Patrizio Ceccagnoli on "December"
Headshot of Anne Carson
A Conversation with Anne Carson

"The voice in Carson's poems is not old or old-fashioned in the least, but neither is it contemporary, exactly; it must speak from behind a mask, must draw its truth from the credit its fiction bestows, must speak in a disembodied-seeming, or detached, voice. Oddly timeless, probably the air of myth never far in her lines. And when I asked Carson why she's drawn to working from behind a mask, she answered, 'Does anyone really like their own face?'" 

via MCSWEENEY'S
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What Sparks Poetry:
Kerry Folan on A Community Poetry Reading in Response to Violence

"I stay tuned in to the conversations happening in my community, and try to respond with events that respond. Like the rest of the world, my community has been watching the images of violence and reports of destruction of the past several months with despair. I wanted to offer my community a way to bear witness to all this suffering in a way that felt meaningful and respectful, and felt strongly that poetry can help us in this moment."
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