A Christmas legend

On the top shelf of my closet, 

our old ceramic Christmas tree 

sits tight for winter.

Come December,  always one of us 

coaxes it down from cramped repose,

clears a place on our buffet 

and directs the tree to burst 

into color--to shine its many tiny bulbs 

on our patch of earth one more year, 

to let every single bulb release 

all it can and light up continents 

on our burdened  souls. 

I don't know why or how 

I lost my hold but our heirloom 

tumbles like a bird shot from

the sky and in a flash of color 

I see Christmas past, 

I see the future as a memory, 

I see a Christmas legend 

being born. 

Syllables

For a time, I think nothing. 

Nothing at all.

None of the usual syllables

come to call

like  pan dem ic 

like au tis m

like wi dow 

And so I know nothing 

for a time--for a blessed morning, 

until unwanted syllables 

do their jack in the box 

trick again 

and more than ever, I want 

a church to join or at least 

a new plot to work on 

so now I muscle all that 

into a poem 

because poems are homes 

for unwanted syllables  

like ach ing 

like strug gle

but also for the wanted 

like o cean

like ba sil

like mer cy.  

Will he hit me back?

I hit him and freeze. 

I have never hit him before 

but I've wanted to

hit him for months,

my boy now 

     tall as me.

Hairy and hooded, mumbling, 

he turns his back on me but

teachers keep calling, 

he's not zooming, 

keeps lying, 

mouthing off, 

    dropping f-bombs. 

Will he hit me back? 

Wondering, waiting to be hit back, 

I see a shy boy flicker 

cross his face but

it is just a flicker 

like a light bulb 

     about to die.  

I should be home by now

What did I know? I was just a kid lost

in play.  Lost in make believe 

in the high ceilinged rooms

of Christine's house down the street.  

Christine with hair light and pure, 

a free-from-dust glow around

her golden threads and periwinkle eyes.  

Fair and sweet as infant Jesus 

watching from the candle-bright altar.  

Then I remember and throw down 

the dolls and shriek, 

I should be home by now! 

Run girl run, my mother's voice 

shrill in my head loops and loops 

and I see her face disfiguring

before me, her oldest child, 

the one most likely to turn out like her, 

the impulsive girl with unkempt hair,

the one she must subdue with brute force, 

must break her in by lunging and slamming 

and throwing her down

until the girl stops screaming and kicking, 

until she lies still, playing dead, and then 

my mother strips from her nails 

the daughter's dislodged hairs, 

one at a time, the silky brunette strands 

of hair without a halo. 

Into the arena

 To the heart ....was it ever less than treason ... 

to bow and accept 

the end of love or a season? --Robert Frost

On our routine walk across the grass

to his first grade room, my boy lets 

my hand go.

You need not hold my hand anymore, 

he says, abashed.  

My gulp, the noise my heart makes,

all squeeze into a smile.  

And before long,  the boy instructs, 

Don't walk me from the car.  

I can go myself.  

His voice still small but dense with volition, 

a fresh-born will, still damp from its placenta, 

but unshakable

So I swallow and watch with pride--

and it is genuine--

this boy run across the grass,

fast on pup's legs, 

without expertise of any kind, 

and alone, still a stranger 

to the world.

Then one day comes the text:

Do not pick me up from school.  

I will walk home.

Now it all looks clear. 

He is suited up, almost free 

from my love--his oppressor.

Iron-cold fireplace

I just read about a convict 

     and think of you, 

    father of my friend--

another boy raised 

in an iron-cold fireplace

who keeps winding up 

in iron-cold places 

     as if jail means a home 

     you can always count on. 

I don't know what to call a boy 

with small fists knocking on doors 

for food then carried off to strangers 

till parents get him back 

for awhile.  

I think of how you bludgeon the world 

     with your sweet looks and mind with wings  

     but it jackhammered your life 

     anyway.  

What amazing good/bad luck 

to have it all 

and nothing 

at the same time.  

I don't know what to call a grown man 

with 14 families in his head and

no God around to help--you sure learned that, 

father of my friend.

    

     Prayers not answered in a world

     that cannot make things right. 

You hold up your hand 

and make a circle between your thumb 

     and forefinger to show me 

     in that tiny patch of sky 

    a hundred thousand galaxies.

What God, you ask, can care about all that? 

Life goes on

I come to pour him 

into this empty beach.

I move toward a quiet realm

where currents scare my species

     away, there 

     I pour my precious dust.

The crabs have noticed. 

Already working 

toward this meal but that's ok.

Let them feast on him before wind 

     and water take his rest away

     and so his life goes on. 

I choose for him the shadow 

of a giant rock black as iron

     thrashing waves about it

     like a castle in a moat. 

This rock so easy to find again 

     and again.  I tell our kids,

walk past the long lagoon, 

pass the cove, the overlooks, 

keep walking,

stay close to shore, watch for a rock, 

     alone and dark and for a crowd

     of shorebirds poking everywhere.

Look for Herons flying high,

     join that merry wake.