so unwillingly
the cat jumps out
of the Christmas tree
Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’
One Curiosity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, Christmas, curiosity, poem, poetry on January 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »
One Persistence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belief, Christmas, poem, poetry, Santa on December 26, 2018| Leave a Comment »
One Wrapping the Gifts
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, gift, love, poem, poetry on December 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »
On Christmas Eve
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, daughter, hymn, parents, poem, poetry, singing on December 24, 2018| 1 Comment »
We sat in the pew
furthest back in the church.
My father would hum all the hymns
and I’d lean closer to him and hum along,
then lean toward my mother
and sing with her the words—
I swayed between them like a metronome,
humming, then singing, then
humming, then singing.
How giddy I was, grateful to be the girl
between them. I did not yet know how
difficult it was to be a parent.
I only knew how good it felt
to be loved, how safe I felt between them,
how delighted I was to find in myself
some part of each of them,
so delighted that even now,
over forty years later
and a thousand miles away,
I remember that night
and begin to sway.
After the Land of Sweets
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, persona, poem, poetry, The Nutcracker, winter on December 23, 2018| 5 Comments »
Believe me, the bon bons are even better
than they look from the audience.
Mother Ginger has made them
with something far sweeter
than Belgian chocolate,
sweeter than old fashioned caramel.
And the snowflakes that fall
at the end of Act One,
they are the best kind of snow—
the kind that never melts
and never make you cold,
the kind that glitter and shimmer and shine.
Believe me, it’s hard to leave.
Before the final curtain’s drawn,
I wave goodbye and smile,
and the golden sleigh
carries me off stage right
as the Nutcracker Prince
waves goodbye and the Sugar
Plum Fairy blows me a kiss.
Believe me, it never gets better than this.
Every time I wake the next morning,
I look at myself in the mirror and notice
the diamond tiara is gone,
my white gown hangs rumpled,
a lily left out of water too long.
Don’t cry, I tell myself. Don’t cry,
though the tears start
to sting in my eyes. Don’t cry.
I tell myself, soon enough
my parents throw the big party again
and Fritz will wail on that blasted trumpet
and Drosselmeyer will bring me
my slender prince, disguised
as a nutcracker, and I will travel
through the strangest dream,
the most wonderful dream,
though I swear it is real.
For over a hundred twenty-five years,
it’s happened so many times
how could I not believe it?
And though I have always
managed to kill the king of the mice
just before he stabs my prince,
every time I fear this will be the time
I will miss with my shoe and
I’ll lose my prince forever.
And every time they push my sleigh
off stage, I pray it will stop
before it reaches the curtains,
pray that this will be the time
I get to stay. This will be the time
I wake to see the prince’s face,
and he’ll beam as he waves his hand
toward the window where the snow
is falling, catching the light,
and the symphony plays on,
a lilting waltz that spirals through
the applause, through dawn.
Decorating the Tree
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, grandmother, mother, ornament, parenting, poem, poetry, tree on December 17, 2018| 7 Comments »
And usually, at some point
in the tree trimming, when the living room
is covered in twenty-year-old tissues
and my fingers are raw from the needles
and the rest of the family
has long since tired of the project,
around then, I start to wonder
what it’s really for, all this bustle
and embellishment and then,
like today, I’ll pick up an ornament—
say the one my grandmother made
from a metal cookie cutter trimmed
in blue ribbon and angel hair,
and inside it sleep two baby figurines,
a pink one for me, a blue for my brother—
and I am weeping,
remembering how I would stare at this ornament
as a child, how beautiful it was
dangling so high on the tree
where all the more delicate ornaments would go.
I was small then, but I knew
my grandmother made that ornament
with me in mind and I loved her for her thoughtfulness.
She is gone this year, and I marvel
at how present she is in this room
as I sing “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem”
with Aaron Neville and remember singing
carols with her in the church loft,
her soprano warbling and true.
And I climb the ladder to hang
the ornament high on the tree,
where the more delicate ornaments go.
And suddenly I see it is my son and daughter
sleeping in that ornament,
there where I thought it was my brother and me.
And I think of my mother’s hands
all those years she hung that ornament
reverently, and how the spruce needles
would have pricked her, too, and I
sing with Aaron about peace to men on earth,
and some of that peace slips into me,
so silently, so silently.
Two Christmas Poems
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, christmas poem, creche, poem, poetry, shepherd on December 23, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Merry Almost Christmas! As we near holiday, here are two poems that came out yesterday in Telluride Inside that play with the carols and parables. What was really going on in that field with the shepherds and their sheep? And … what really IS going on in my home on that (not so) silent night … wishing all of you something miraculous. Like peace.
Oh Night Divine
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, creche, family, parenting, poem, poetry on December 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »
In the crèche arranged on the piano each Christmas,
the clay face of the virgin mother is eternally beaming
at the miracle child in his swaddling clothes,
and the miracle child is sleeping, always peacefully sleeping,
no matter how loudly my son pretends he’s a race car, no matter
how many people are laughing in the kitchen.
And Joseph, he is looking out across the piano
as if staring through the stable, staring through centuries,
perhaps, as if he can already see the tables upended
in the temple, can already smell the sweetness
of shared loaves and the pungency of fish, can hear
Mary weeping, or is it me he hears, playing piano
and singing about the hopes and fears of all the years,
then pausing to ask my children not to argue, please,
and to use their kindest voices with each other—and they
continue to bicker. Meanwhile the shepherd and his sheep
gaze up at the crack in the wall in awe, as if there were stars there,
stars brightly shining, and yonder, breaking, a new and glorious morn.
Chance Meeting?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, poem, poetry, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, stranger on December 23, 2016| 1 Comment »
Every one of us, a sliver of divinity–I suppose that belief is part of what drives this poem published today in Telluride Inside and Out … a poem I wrote last year about a chance encounter around Christmastime.
Merry Christmas, friends … you can read the poem here.
The Gift
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, poem on December 24, 2015| 7 Comments »
Everything we hope for
inside a box,
inside a stocking,
inside each other,
yes everything we hope for
is nowhere until
we find it
inside us,
and then it is everywhere
and all we want
is to give it
freely.
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