(Three Objects of The Season is an assignment I gave my Wednesday Writers in December 2014. I join them in this annual tradition, each year writing on a different seasonal topic.)

Emily Dickinson called Hope “…the thing with feathers that perches in the soul / And sings the tune without the words / And never stops at all.” So I choose Hope as the first of my objects.

I associate Hope with the holiday season. For me, the holiday is Solstice, the pause before daylight begins to lengthen. And, though Hope should have no single season, still, in my mind, darkness represents a negation of yearning and anticipation, whereas light represents dreaming and sweet anticipation.

The second object I associate with the season is greenery. Green boughs weighed down with snow. Cedars, firs and yew bushes offering safe harbor to birds who, despite their feathers, huddle deep within, out of the blast.

Green is also the color of renewal. A green bough brought into the house in dark winter gives off a freshening tang, a scent of heady promise.

Two circles intertwined are the third object I associate with the season, circles of faces we love: faces of the present, long familiar or lately come to us. But newly illuminated, newly seen. The second circle is faces from the past, gone from us now. The coming of light casts a glow on them. Like birds in the bough, they gather in the tree of our attention, seeking the warmth of our remembrance.

Remember. Remember.