Christmas… A Kinder Word

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea… on and on… until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the lookout in the bow, the  officers who had the watch; dark ghostly figures in their stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companions of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad had had a kinder word for one another on that day than on any day in the year; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance and had known that they delighted to remember him.   -Charles Dickens- ‘A Christmas Carol’.

Again the ghost sped on…

“Again the ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea… on, on… until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the lookout in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark ghostly figures in their stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companions of some bygone Christmas day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad had had a kinder word for one another on that day than on any day in the year; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance and had known that they delighted to remember him.”
-Charles Dickens- ‘A Christmas Carol’

The Presence of Christmas

Again the ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea… on, on… until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the lookout in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark ghostly figures in their stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companions of some bygone Christmas day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board,

Old October

“All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travelers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.”                                               -Thomas Wolfe

For some time, I’ve wanted to write something with this quote in mind that would bring some semblance of its brevity on one hand and at the same time the depth of