Christmas Presence

 

 

I am here 

Warm blooded

In the icy dawn.

Pink blush to periwinkle blues

Paint the sky

Behind eyelashes,

Barren branches,

Heavy hearts hung high

Not just I 

sigh, exhale

thinking only of 

Others

whose day holds heavy fruit,

Hugs, in deep loss and great gains

ripe and rotten. I

Inhale the sharpness of

Those warm with love and

Those hollow in hopelessness.

Those that have just arrived,

Those that have long left,

Those that remain

In this familiar temperance

I feel

Here. And there

Goes, swift as the hours,

enduring as years

Ends and Begins

all Over and

Again.

 

 

 

Artwork by Hans Makart 1840-1884), 'Abundantia the gifts of the earth' in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Warming up in the arena

The arena is oval
intentioanlly making

the full circle of time
longer
to come back around.

And again, there she was
propped on top 

of the highest hill
and I, as usual, 

stood down on
the slope to the sea.

We smelt smoke
simultaneously
lifted noses and sought out the source
at the same time
the lighting changed 

at once, dramatically.

The sun, abased,
hid his face,
and then ashes fell in fat white flakes
resembling a December snowfall.

The chimes rang in the festivities,
discarding suddenly
the carols for a cacaphony.
Twas an ode to Saint Ana, played
in her lowest latitiude
in lieu of Saint Nick
from the shrill Northmost pole.

And again,
it was watching the horses
that knocked the wind out of me.
I found myself suddenly breathless,
trampled and tethered to death-again
it was familiar, like a rerun of hooves

and clapping.

Under a change of directional
winds, the brittle atmosphere
carried things this way

on a warm winter day.

Amid the sea of grey, the longshot,
made a circle of gates

sent forth as smoke signals and 

red flags at the finish line.

One time we will learn
it is by noses alone
that races are won
or lost.

Photo credit by cogdogblog (https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/2672008614/) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

a Peace of Christmas morning

Christmas morning,
nearing six,
the moon just retired.
Curled on the corner of the couch,
under the copper lamp light,
books piled on the left arm,
Smokey is nestled on my right,
between outstretched toes,
pads touching mine,
his heavy head propped on my
soul, with a deep sigh,
i am alone
writing
in front of the Christmas tree,
whose moments are numbered-
alee, the chimes try to carol outside
a pine candle cheerfully flickers,
heavy breaths are carried down the hall...
and I remember
how many books I've read this year
and the fathoms I've learned
beyond measure.
I am
more aware-
of myself.
I am getting somewhere-
besides the moral of the story
or simply The End.
I have found peace
and puzzled in pleasure
over moments
with words as pieces,
like these,
gathering beloved dearly
to day.





Image By Lars Jacob for Ristesson [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Since Christmas is coming I have stocked up on pine candles

They all said it was dead.
The marks were obvious signs. The color,
bad news. Nothing could be done.
We knew after consulting with the experts
the day was coming,
but it was out there somewhere, solid and waiting,
until that day became today.

Needles glistened red in the sunrise,
the birds stayed away,
yesterday there were thirty crows
don't tell me a bird brains don't know.

Sure its pusy sap has made a mess,
parking under there a last resort,
but the smell and shade worth the week-
ends raking, complaining, venting,
and meditating on the smells.

The gang was all there prepared
to greet its last day the moment it broke,
move it or lose it, officially tagged
no parking here today.

Neighbors gather around like vultures
just outside the attack lines, the cone zone
pacing, bleary eyed.
And some have wheelbarrows
to take pieces of the carcass for themselves.

The orange man in the boom box
bobs and weaves while he makes
his perfect cuts with moving precision.
A chef on deck asea.

They are operating ruthlessly as I write this,
my son still asleep under its bossom soon
mastectomized. The windows are behind
plywood, in case a limb fights back.

Our mailboxes are gone for the day
Christmas is on its way, deliveries delayed.
This is no time for merry anyway.

Fifty feet tall and forty years of giving breath,
gone in a days work of slaughter and toil.

The crane in the sky screeches
as it chokes off major arteries
as a support staff of the savage surgery.

We were hoping for some empathy,
gloves instead is what we get, a slab for the back,
a souvenir, they said.

I'm hunkered down, don't want to look,
honestly I've never had one this big die on me.
I didn't know my breath would be taken instantly,
from piney oxygen deprivation.

When there's a hole, an empty space
in my skyline, I'll know
those mounds, like shallow graves
will mark the place of a time
where a perfect pine used to grow,
one that I called mine,
and the gnomes called home.



*If you have not read already, Before this Pine is Done was composed in tribute to this same deceased tree now resting in heaps.

Top image credit: By Jon Sullivan [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.