The year is circling.
The light returns again.
Minute by minute
it’s a new dawn.
Loss is behind us
What’s coming is new,
so welcome beginnings
and good things for you.
poem-wanderer December 28, 2015
Death walks softly
cloaked in invisibility.
You rose from bed,
settled in your chair,
and Death tapped you on the shoulder;
bid you follow.
But you said, “Wait,
I have something to do.”
You closed your eyes, and arrived in my room.
I felt you there, befuddled and lost, and so I told you
To move toward the light,
I told you I loved you.
I told you to say hello to Grandma and Grandpa.
And you tracked the light, through my bedroom door
up through my roof, and I looked at the clock: 8:37
The moment you left for heaven.
poem-Brittany December 27, 2015
So small,
but her voice rings out,
bell-like and true
She holds tightly to the tune.
Iridescent cherry curves of caramel.
Beauty under pressure,
vibrating on my lap
music therapy for what ails me.
.
.
A little metaphor. Here’s the Brittany in question:
Literally true- she keep her tuning amazingly well- I didn’t play for a month and every note was still right! Unheard of in a harp, really. Also, the strings are under nearly a ton of pressure, the soundboard bellies out quite dramatically. (They say a harp sounds at its most beautiful just before it explodes…) My Brittany is cherry wood in the sound box, pillar and harmonic curve, but Baltic birch on the sound board. She’s a very beautiful little harp.
poem-morning December 25, 2015
Somewhere,
children are laughing
tearing wrappings
squealing gleefully.
Somewhere,
some one is dining on cold pizza
in relative contentment
absent of relatives.
Somewhere,
snow is falling,
from a moonlit sky
and light is returning
bit by bit.
poem-Christmas Eve December 24, 2015
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.
poem-exorcise December 23, 2015
Pen strokes
Keyboard strikes
Ghosts exorcised by words;
Freedom found from phantoms.
New worlds
opened for exploration.
poem-burnt December 22, 2015
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.
poem-absent December 21, 2015
I hear your voice I see your smile
I’m glad you’re here to sit a while,
but when I turn around I see
that you are only memory.
So Christmas has come and you are gone
and day by day life still goes on;
though you are free from earthy pain,
Your absence grieves my heart again.
poem-reader December 20, 2015
Perhaps, because I’m reading
Dust bunnies scamper across my floors
hiding beneath tables, gathering behind doors.
Perhaps, because I’m reading
Dishes stack into tall piles
and papers are exploding in spurts, beyond their files.
Perhaps, because I’m reading
I ignore the telephone,
but then, because I’m reading,
I’m content within my home.
Shawn L. Bird 