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.
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