Xmas Passed

I don’t know how I could have penned a word
the last four days, for then I had no time
away from him and them. I never heard
the silence in my head that finds a rhyme
and feels a tune and dances on the feet
of memory and simile and might.
Full half a week was given to complete
immersion in his old familiar rite.

And it was interesting and mostly good;
we’re able to be close, to my surprise.
Each acted like the other understood,
and disappointment clouded no one’s eyes.
But oh it’s fine to sleep alone again,
at home where I can hear the song within.

 
Xmas Present

The Xmas never was my holiday,
but I have been a witness many years
to each familiar rite or wonted way
my friends produce. In heated atmospheres,
congested couches cup the celebrants.
In rooms made host to cards and gifts and tree,
traditions stale as packaged peppermints
engorge the brain with hackneyed mystery.

And I am like a fly upon the wall
where hang the tinsel rituals; I see
the grins and grimaces and hear the call
that’s understood within a family:
their custom is to share six kinds of fudge
that taste too sweet to me, but I’m no judge.

 
Xmas Yet to Come

Let Santa sleep, and no one jar his dreams.
Let winter silence still the jingle bells.
Let’s put aside the sugars, fats and creams,
and wear a charm against the pressing spells
that media impose upon us now,
that families first fabricate and then,
by caging with occasion, dictate how
you spend the day, with whom and what and when.

The sun has crossed the southernmost extent
and so begins our journey back to light.
And that’s the cross for which this season’s meant –
now turn and say farewell to wealthy night.
Let’s celebrate the cycle of rebirth
that golden warms to life carousing earth.