How
shall
we celebrate?
with eggnog. tree.
(doubt there’ll be snow)
family, friends.
cookies. candles.
stack lots of firewood.
(oh no. cutter packed)
Beth – gingerbread men duty.
festival of nine lessons and carols.
advent calendar. packed.
(will anyone notice)
order turkey (vegetarian too)
somehow it falls into place.
I’m so glad you Always
put fruit and nuts in the stockings.
And cats, NO getting up early this year!
Where is the nutcracker who stands sentry by the front door? or tiny train going round and round looking for Christmas? small fairy sled that’s carried generations of rosy cheeked babes sits in an upstairs corner – waiting. the cats wait too – lazing in a slice of winter sun. Now grown children pop chocolates…
Stepping across the threshold leaving one reality, embracing another – if only for a few moments Inside a fan mutely, slowly bathes the room in a slight breeze long, slender blades dip (ever so slightly) as if to caress my husband resting in the bed below were it not for the four posters standing sentry…
There was something magical – and fragile – about the tissue papers on which we corresponded (marked PAR AVION) and the interminable weeks between each letter Post World War II the world was trying to rebuild, heal we (Yukiko and I) were part of that process – two children: one Japanese, one American Our shared…
The snow must have begun while we were sleeping, for outside the sheerest of veils already stretched from Heaven to earth. Trees and fences softened, and land blurred into water – barely visible geese passed overhead, merged with the mist and disappeared – all, silently and leaving no print on the ground. Yet still they…
Painted navy gray lifeboat oars, copper straps binding battered tips…
In winter the blackest of nights cloak the heavens exploding their brilliance Millions of unseen shards fall earthward through the atmosphere – the air so dense, it takes one’s breath away At first light gnarled and scattered waste of seasons past glisten for a moment under last night’s carpet of frost – Soon, all will…