Five Christmas gifts follow: a sampling of the twenty-four poems I wrote--one each day--for this Advent. Starting with the stocking stuffer . . . .
Harbor hopes as big as ships
equipped to cross worlds.
*
Fog rests in the forest, hiding
a world between grass and branches—
a world so soft and molecular
that breath would end it.
Once I was invited to a back room.
A man opened a drawer, then a box.
Then a folio with a spine thick as my fist.
He opened to a page illumined in gold leaf.
I could see my face in the burnished
brightness limning a birth.
I leaned over it, “Oh . . .”
The man shook his head.
That brilliance I could dull by breath.
Oh, fragility kept pressed
behind pages, boards, box, drawer
robbed of light. How can such beauty
shine if not exposed to the elements
that could destroy it?
How like its subject, deity turned
mortal to show us light.
Walk in this winter.
Wave your arms and holler
until you see your own breath.
*
Inspired by a vision of a ship’s figurehead turning outside in, as if she were looking to see if she had a heart.
My ship points inward
like a sleeve stuck
inside a shirt. Any
limb will reach core.
My cargo is heart,
heaven. The weight
so light, it almost
flies, this vessel.
Yes. See beneath me?
Stars. Here I plot
course, planetless.
Orbit with me. Hold
the north-pointing compass.
Tell me when it’ll be
to bright to read,
then kiss me with sleep.
I wake, seams back
inside, sleeves filled
with reasonable arms
holding reasonable things:
A bowl of stars
as souvenirs.
*
Inspired by the Celtic belief of “thin places,” where the veil is thinner between this world and the next
Love, sweet alias for the world
we wish to see, come rest
on our heads, close as hair.
Be the reason for the scalp’s
work—to grow strands that lift
with the physics of angels.
Love, watch the hair thinning,
guide the white. Give
us the wisdom we cannot reach
but which reaches us—
like a mother bending down
to lift up her child.
Her touch is tonsure,
marks us as those
who walk between.
*
The candle’s second end
is meant to rest, deep in white,
held curled asleep.
It is light’s tiny fly
stilled in waxen
amber millennia past.
That moist wick, not
meant for flame,
is signal—will
sputter and snap at fire.
Burn everything else
in the long line of life,
but leave yourself
a remainder of what
you’ll be remembered for.
