So Much More

We gathered under one roof again
just before the turning of the year.
My children are home.

Christmas was late this year
according to some other calendar
for families sliced and divided by
another kind of love
and loss.

None of it matters when we laugh
and open our gifts with each other.

It is enough to sit around the table
with fresh and home made food
we picked up from farmers at the local market.
French bread and cheese,
chicken and potatoes,
eggs and butternut,
carrots and chocolate.

We are warm in the cold.
We are loved for who we are.
We are so much more together.

Cold

Below zero
doesn't happen in Vermont every day.
December dips lower than the horizon
and we shiver to the center of this darkness.

It is cold
with the moon bright
on the icy pack of the last snow.
We walk, crunching loudly
toes stiff and stumbling
toward the fire.

Look up at the sky
and see the Dipper
and the Belt of Orion.

Feeling the sting on my face
is an awakening to all that is beautiful
if I can open my eyes.

In The End

In the end
everything is silent.

There is no distraction
of breathing or the beating
of the heart against the walls
of your body.

In the end
everything is light
enough to cast into the wind.
Ashes and feathers and love
fly together
without even giving it
a thought.

In the end the voice drifts
into the back of the mind
until the smell of vanilla
walks into the room
with her hands on her hips
and asks

"Are you here?"

Holy Days

The vapor of your face
is a thread
knotted
to a small memory.

The voice I hear

immune to the lightning
and crash ending we all know
in slow motion
and so very violent.


The phone call home
on Christmas night
was heavy as granite and pictures
with a broad understanding
of what little remains
after each breath.

The lungs begin to fill,
sit parallel in the chest,
and are so very close
to the wisest heart.

What grief now lives
on the alter of each precious day
raised above your head
like the host
at Midnight Mass?

Christmas Eve Before the Storm

Quiet and waiting for the sky to drop all her stars
softly after the ice landed like magic
on the tender Vermont trees,

my children are scattered
here and there like winter
and the next Alberta clipper.
I know the storm coming
in my bones and belly.

While I listen to old Bing Crosby
sing "Silver Bells"
I am thinking of my Navy father
and the way that he always
made it home for us
on Christmas morning.
No matter how far away,
he was there
with the tree
and lights at dawn.

Tonight with the crooner's smooth voice
lulling me into this dream of another night,
I can't get Daddy out of my head
on the morning I was six or seven,
maybe before my sister was born,
asleep in his black and white robe.
It was Mayport, probably 1970,
and he didn't wake up
no matter how excited I was
to show him my new blond Barbie doll.

His face was so still and quiet
while I waited for the miracle of his return
to wake up and notice the life
he was making for us all.