Long Way From Home

It's Christmastime these days. My first ever without an immense midnight sky lit by a hundred thousand, maybe a hundred million stars. I miss the northern stars, the big dipper, polaris, all my life they have guided me home. There is a certain comfort knowing that those people I love and miss just might be wishing on the same star even though separated by hundreds of miles. Here I am just far away. Mountains and the prairie, fire in the woodstove, baking pies, doggies, family.