The next several days are rich with holidays.

The Roman fertility festival, Lupercalia, was celebrated Feb. 13-15. (See an allusion to this festival in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar.") Couched in between those dates is Valentine's Day, of course.

Following soon after are contrasting holidays associated with a major Christian festival.

This Feb. 17 is Mardi Gras or "Fat Tuesday," the culmination of Carnival season. It is a raucous last hurrah before the solemn Lenten season begins the next day, on Ash Wednesday.

And Feb. 19th brings in the Chinese New Year, this year being the Year of the Goat. (Did I mention that my husband and I have goats?? :))

Taken together, these holidays evoke the tension between feasting and fasting; jubilation and repentance; fertility and desolation; and romance, lust, and abstinence.

It is a time both to enjoy and to ponder.

Keep well.


"Dancing” has poems that allude to all of these holidays and to these themes.