TWO DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS, 2020

The presents are all unwrapped

And gifts stowed away

In their rightful spaces:

Closets and drawers

And other special places.

The Christmas meal gobbled

And vanished,

The table has returned

To everyday dress.

 

There are no guests

To be lingering on.

This is 2020, no guests allowed

For safety’s sake.

After-Christmas sales are few

As the stores are closed.

 

Traffic near the mall

Is stalled by overflowing

Cars from restaurant take-out lines,

Because those seeking a change

From the food at home

May not dine inside or outside.

All this is a gift of 2020.

 

Parks are attended by very few—

Maybe one, two or three

For a little time—

Kids with a new toy,

A dog with its owner—

Then the park is once more open,

Dormant and waiting

Like spaces long unexplored.

 

Here and there a few people

Are seen about on sidewalks,

Wearing their masks of choice.

It’s been a sad Christmas season.

That’s all too clear.

 

Now, except for a pyramid of tree

With its fading fragrance of pine,

And the lights on the house,

All signs of Christmas are gone.

#ChristmasandCOVID #ChristmasandRestrictions

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THAT CHRISTMAS EVE

He wasn’t there

(I know).

The jolly fat man

In the red snowsuit.

 

He wasn’t there.

 

My mother told me later

He couldn’t have been there

Bending over near the chimney

Straightening up the toys.

 

He wasn’t there.

 

And he didn’t turn and nod

To me standing barefoot

In my nightgown

Chilled and thrilled

At the kitchen door.

 

I must have been dreaming.

I know.

 

The presents are all unwrapped

And gifts stowed away

But in the joy of a memory

In the heart of a child,

The four-year old me—

 

I know

And will forever know—

He was there.

#Christmas #ChristmasandChildhood #SantaClaus

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HE CAME IN A STARSHIP

Adrift in the Rings of Hafliet in the softness of gloetied evening on the planetoid Laslan, the people gather. It is the night of Graet Stoeree, and the Lastuons come to the Graet Plaes.

From the Eebn Plaes, the dwarfish Caevns come with faces hidden beneath blackened domes glinting above their velvet suits worn only for the Graet Stoeree Gathering. From the Flat Plaes, the homeless Roemrs come in their hafcast capes and Lostiem dress. From the Vels, the Leeds come in their golden robes, bringing the Graet Stoeree feast. Down from the Skie Mas, the Munteers come to wait beside the Graet Plaes arch and greet the travelers as they gather on the plain of Landen Plaes.

This night all will eat together as one family.

When the feast is over and the Graet Songs have been sung, as the last flowing of the gloetied passes beyond the Skie Mas, the Graet Stoeree Telr rises from the Landen Plaes and stands beneath the Graet Plaes arch to tell again the Graet Stoeree.

“Once in the Lostiem in the black void beyond the farthest sun in the Emptee Plaes, there was a green planet of blue and white.

On this planet there was a man, strong like the Munteers, as handsome as the greatest of the Leeds, wise like the Caevns and gifted with a power stranger than the mystic games of the Roemrs. Like us, he did not belong to that planet but came there from a better place. Unlike us, he chose to go there and could return to his home at any time.

He came in a starship which glided slowly over the land until it came to rest in the place, Bethlum. So great was  he that he could guide the starship when he was just a tiny one. He was so small the people of that planet thought he was just an infant.

There was a man and a woman in Bethlum who had no child, and they cared for him as if he were their own son. After he had found a home with the man and the woman, he told his great father who then sent an army to tell the people of Bethlum that they should honor and protect his son.

And the people did. Great Leeds, called kings, came to give him gifts, and homeless ones came to receive his wisdom. But some did not believe the power of the tiny one and tried to harm him. So he hid from these people and pretended that he was one of the people of that planet and belonged to the man and the  woman. The people then forgot his father’s great army and he grew and lived like the children of that place.

But one day, his great father called to him saying “You are grown now, my son, and you must do what I sent you to do.” So, the son, who now looked like a man, left the place where he was and began a new life….”

In the shadowless night of Graet Stoeree

On the plain of Landen Plaes

The Lastuons listen with the ears of children

In the hushed silence of their hearts.

#Christmas #ChristmasStory #ChristmasandScienceFantasy

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I AM TOLD THAT I AM ANGRY

I am told that I am angry,

that my anger has been cultured

out of mind.

 

I am told that I have not sought

the mountain top

because the path was sabotaged-

mother, father, brother, sister

all contributing traps, fences,

exploding mines to bar the way.

 

But I never was a serious climber.

It is too hard, even without

gendercidal barriers.

I do not like to fight,

though I have and I do.

I must sometimes fight

to be allowed not to scale

some looming mountain peak.

 

Yet it is true.

I feel my gender’s anger

for the oppressive fear

that denied my freedom of dress,

the freedom of traveling alone,

of living alone.

 

Why am I,

like the many of a hated race,

made to feel an ever-present fear,

Ambush always seeming imminent,

No place of safety,

and no freedom to forget

the nearness of the threat?

 

Why has this constant terror

been supported as tradition,

a culturally accepted norm?

 

For this crippling of my life

there is anger–

a raging inferno that would, if loosed,

be matched only

by the devastation

at the birth of a volcano.

#Feminism #ViolenceAgainstWomen

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December Rain

drips metronoming

with unchanging beat    drip drip

dull December rain

 

#RainPoetry

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YOU LISTENED

You listened.

And as I spoke,

I saw in your eyes

not the anger

nor the fear

I had seen before

in other eyes.

 

For as those others

heard me speak

they saw a reality

that threatened

what security they had.

 

But you listened

to the pain,

to the frightened

lost child that spoke

You drew from me

what I most needed

to share.

 

You listened.

For the first time

in my seeming

endless search,

I found someone

to listen.

 

You gave to me

the greatest gift

I have ever received.

There is no greater gift.

 

You freed my soul.

#ListeningandCompassion #Communication #Depression #Compassion

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From the Unpainted Series: The Storyteller

The glow from an unseen fire

Is both warm and cruel,

Revealing every crease

In the deeply lined face

Beneath a well-worn mob cap

From which a few gray,

Somewhat greasy looking curls

Have escaped.

She is an old woman.

Her skin dark from days of sun

And perhaps also from her lineage.

Her right eye is clouded by cataract,

But the left is alive with light.

This is a face that would have appealed

To Rembrandt to detail in a miniature

Portrait, perhaps, or in the shadows

Of a larger commissioned work.

Even the vague dark background

Of the portrait before us

Is reminiscent of his paintings.

True to the title, the woman,

Leans forward from her pillowed chair,

Her mouth open with a slight smile,

Her gnarled hands reach out from beneath

The heaviness of her shawl

In a gesture intended to clarify her words,

And draw in her listeners.

She pulls you nearer

Leaving you wishing

You could hear the story

She is so eagerly sharing.

#VirturalPortrait #WordPortrait #Storyteller

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A Story of Poppies

Poppies were always golden,

Or so I thought,

And they came in the Spring

When they grew everywhere

Like weeds—

But I was a California girl

And only four years old.

 

Then one November day

My Gram and my Mom

Brought poppies home

From shopping downtown—

Flimsy paper poppies

Poppies that were red.

 

No one ever explained

Why the flowers had to be red.

I was told it was tradition

Like putting our flag on the porch

For November 11, Armistice Day.

 

When I was five

I met the poppy makers

Or sellers or both.

These were usually men

Who were missing

Pieces of themselves:

A hand, an arm,

A leg or two, an eye.

Occasionally there were women, too,

On the corners, mid-block,

All holding flowers to sell.

 

And everywhere around,

Inside stores,

Along the sidewalk,

On the bus—

A spot of red

Showed on peoples’ clothing:

On a lapel or pocket,

On blouse or jacket,

No matter if the color clashed.

 

Many years later,

I learned the answer

When I saw the battlefields

Of World War One

And the grave sites there

Where poppies bloomed–

Red poppies,

Everywhere…red poppies.

 

 

 

 

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LATE AFTERNOON

Noon’s heat lingers

In the leaves of trees

Radiates from Nature’s hearths

Of sun-baked stone

But already the shadows

Have shifted toward sunset

And the air sighs its reluctance

To greet the night

While the Earth silently

Irrevocably

Rolls forward and beneath

The cooling lunar tide

 

 

#EveningPoetry #AutumnPoem

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THE TALE OF THE PIRATE’S GLEN

Those who like to scare and dare

Say that on certain foggy nights,

Pirates will return

To the glen in the woods

To dance and fight around

Their pirate treasure hoard

And sing their pirate chant,

“Yo Ho! Yo Ho!”

 

One summer night

As the fog horns in the bay

Began their wailful moan,

A young boy left his bed

To travel into the forest.

There he climbed a tree

At the edge of the glen

To see if the tales were true.

 

The sea mist, like the tide,

Slid across the glen

And into the trees beyond.

Then the clouds rose

And boiled like the ocean

Waves that crashed off shore.

When nothing could be seen

Of the empty grassy floor,

Small lights appeared

In the trees, bobbing

Like lanterns carried,

Until they entered the glen

And circled around

One, two, three, perhaps

Five in all arranged in a circle.

Then in the center, shadows

Began to move; though indistinct

They resembled men gathered there.

 

Into the silence came the clinking

Of coins and the clashing of metal

As the faint moonlight flashed

Upon the circle as if on a cutlasses raised.

As the reflected slices of light

Circled around the glen,

There came another sound

Low, from deep within the earth.

It was the pirate’s chant:

“Yo Ho! Yo Ho!”

 

The boy could not remember

Afterward how long he watched

From his perch high in a tree.

But his clothes began damply

Clinging to his skin and he began

To quiver with the cold

(or fear or both)

Before the fog slid down the trees

And sifted back the way it had come

As though called by the sea away.

The small and eerie lights

Followed the receding gray mist

Down the path to the coast

And drifting back came echoes

Of the pirate chant:

“Yo Ho! Yo Ho!”

 

Clambering down to the ground,

The boy searched the glen

For evidence of the pirates—

But there was none.

Following the failing moon

He returned through the wood.

Whenever he heard the tale

In later years, he would say,

“Nay, that cannot be. ‘Tis only a tale.’

Yet, he kept a record in a journal

Of his night sitting high above the glen.

A record for later generations

To find and ponder on.

 

Those who like to scare and dare

Say that on certain foggy nights,

Pirates will return

To the glen in the woods

To dance and fight around

Their pirate treasure hoard

And sing their pirate chant,

“Yo Ho! Yo Ho!”

 

#PirateTales #GhostTales

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