New Year’s Day

 

The women say it would behoove us

to thank the sun for coming back. We must

play our fiddles, sing and dance, in this

still dark time of the year.

                                        It would be nice

to think we take on new identities

by wearing masks, descend on our neighbors,

unannounced, peer in their windows, romp

into their kitchens, whirl about the room,

banging pots, screeching fiddles, singing

Ilky Moor and Somerset Wassail,

Drive Dull Cares Away, do the Ribbon Reel,

have beer and eggnog , bread and cheese, leaving

as fast as we came.

It doesn't happen quite

this way but it feels like it does in the night.

                                                                 – Dudley Laufman

–

Since the early 1980’s, it has been Dudley’s vision and passion for the music, dance and sense of community that inspires us all to travel from house to house in celebration and joy.