Christmas soon. Then off to the everglades for a real kayak adventure. Then to the mountains for time in the place I enjoy most.

Here is a great poem for Thursday, by Margaret Atwood:

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You Are Happy  by Margaret Atwood

The water turns
a long way down over the raw stone,
ice crusts around it

We walk separately
along the hill to the open
beach, unused
picnic tables, wind
shoving the brown waves, erosion, gravel
rasping on gravel.

In the ditch a deer
carcass, no head. Bird
running across the glaring
road against the low pink sun.

When you are this
cold you can think about
nothing but the cold, the images

hitting into your eyes
like needles, crystals, you are happy.

"You Are Happy" by Margaret Atwood, from Selected Poems 1965-1975. © Houghton Mifflin, 1976