by Roger Mock A calendar is a useful thing sometimes. It provides a structure in which to view our lives, week by week and year by year. We could thank Pope Gregory XIII for this, I suppose (though ultimately our gratitude belongs to the sun, the moon and our ever spinning earth). Gregory is the…
by Roger Mock The Winter Solstice, that time of deepest darkness and icy weather, is quite undeniably upon us. Let’s cue up the beginning of Christina Rossetti’s frost-bound poem (rimy rhyme?) to get us in the mood: In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone. The…