Someone has to care enough
to do the grunt work.
Haul up the tree
Heave. Grunt.
Whip up the shortbread.
Beat. Grunt.
Dig out the toboggans, drive to the hill.
Wheeee! Grunt.
Cook the turkey. Shop. Wrap the presents.
Grunt
Grunt
Grunt.
Some years the off-stage magicians are silent,
but this year you can hear us
grunt.
Those best laid plans
family coming from afar
creating traditions, warm hearts,
remembering those lost this year.
Everything is ready here, gifts piled up
waiting for wrapping.
Public health says stay home.
We must be lonely holiday islands.
There’s no time for parcels to arrive by the
assigned festive day
amid the mail delivery crisis.
No one to gather around our table.
So everything will be different.
We must make something new, a Zoom festivity?
Re-thinking that nativity when a stable had to do,
just like for the Holy Family, things don’t always go
according to
our best laid plans.
Tonight amid the Christmas decorations
grief is hanging on our tree;
loss pummels
hopefulness.
Sadness hollows out my chest,
crushes my shoulders,
lodges in my throat.
Longing overwhelms.
There is no comfort
here, only more memories
of what is gone
who is gone
when is gone
where is gone.
Tonight is too much to bear,
so I’ll climb into bed and
trust tomorrow brings
solace and that much lauded
peace of the season.
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The dog stares mesmerized
past the old bulbs wrapped around the blue spruce, those steady, dependable glass bulbs that have illuminated twenty Christmases,
to the lilac bushes where the new micro-bulbs change from white to colour, fade, flash, flicker, urge us to celebrate with their “Party on!” dance,
but this year, putting them out
used all the energy we have,
and there’s no irony in the number of blue bulb strings wrapped and draped around the door.
We’re going to wrap the outside tree.
Just round and round
says he,
but these are different colours
we should go up and down to mix,
she suggests too tentatively.
So now the tree is half one
half the other.
Divided territories,
instead of blended harmony.
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(Just a poem about what went on today as hubby and I put up the lights, and suddenly I’m reading it now and seeing it as a rather profound metaphor- also- where the heck did that rhyme come from? >shrug< Poetry, eh? It does its own thing!)
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She is gone
traditions will be different in her absence
I am a poor substitute.
May our Christmas cookies
and your memories
be sweet.
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Boxed up
memories, wrapped carefully
in torn tissue paper,
worn over years.
Boxed up
histories, revisited annually-
unwrapping melancholy,
tying it on a tree.
Downcast eyes,
a tentative
I made this for you.
Whatever it is
wrapped by hopeful hands,
holding you with a glistening gaze,
There is only one response:
It’s lovely!
Crumpled paper,
unfathomable art,
shapeless, tasteless garment,
Made it for you means
I love it.
I love it
means
I love you, too.
It’s Christmas Eve and you’re not here,
There’ll never be another year
when we will feel your warm embrace
and look upon your loving face.
It’s our first Christmas without you
No wonder I am feeling blue.
She’s fuchsia
purple
royal blue.
She’s wine,
emerald,
turquoise.
Everyone knows it.
But you gift burnt orange
despite having heard years
of disgusted mutterings
about orange and yellow and olive
from childhood.
Burnt orange.
Burnt.
Orange.
She ponders
Surely there is a message here?
and wonders whether you would be offended
if she dyes your gift
more than she’s offended
by burnt orange.
Shawn L. Bird 