ADESTE FIDELES

Come

Come to Bethlehem

Join the company
    Mary is here
    And Joseph
    A donkey
    Cattle lowing
    Shepherds   
    A lamb or two
    Wise men three
    And, if you choose, you

Come to Christmas

Venite adoramus

IN THE SHOPPING MALL TEN DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

She was beautiful
    black, lustrous hair,
    skin that shimmered,
    eyes a man could
    fall into and drown
and she chose me (me!)
stepped in front of me
and gave me a smile
that fastened my feet to the floor.

You celebrate the holidays
don't you? she purred.
    Uh . . . yeah . . . sure.
    (I have such a way with words)
She touched my arm.
Good, she said. I'd like
to show you something
over here and nodded
her entire magnificent body
at a kiosk filled with jars
and bottles of something or other.

I took a last look at her.
I don't think so, I said
and escaped, my wallet
and self-respect intact.

I'm still regretting it.

SONGS IN THE NIGHT

On cold winter Sunday nights
the week ended or perhaps began
with my parents singing.
Mother played the piano as they sang.
Self-taught, she cheated a bit
on the alto and tenor lines but
not the bass which Dad sang to
accompany her soprano. Old songs
mostly: Study War No More and
Old Kentucky Home but mostly the hymns
we sang at church. Sent to bed,
my sister and I were ushered to sleep
with What a Friend We Have in Jesus
and We'll Understand It All By and By.
Worries about school the next day
and whether the Russians would drop
the Bomb surrendered to the two part
harmony coming from downstairs where
two people who loved each other
and us sang their songs into the night.

ARROWHEAD

Late summer. I took off my shoes
and waded ankle-deep into the water.
The Indians, I’d been told, called it
"Chiques." We just called it "the creek."
I stepped on something smooth, glanced
down and saw what looked like an arrowhead.
I picked it up and became at once

      a warrior, face painted, alert
      to every sound, moving with swift     
      stealthy step through the trees that
      surround the white settlement. I can
      hear the thud of hammers, the rasp
      of saws. Peering through the branches
      of a hemlock, I see men lifting logs
      to build their fort. Quickly I reach
      for the quiver on my back, fit the arrow
      onto my bow. I pull the string back
      to my ear and . . .

I hear my mother calling me for supper.

THE DOCENT

The docent at the Shepherdstown Museum
has little time for pleasantries.

She walks with crutches but needs
no aids for her impartings of history.

She feeds them to us like a mother robin
bringing precious provender to her nestlings.

She makes us see the water wheels
whose heavy stones gristed grain,
helps us hearken to the cannon thunder
from the carnage at Antietam in 1862.

She believes we have come to learn
and she will see to it, God help her,
that we do.

Attempts at levity are not, I repeat,
are not appreciated.

ON THE TRAIN TO ATLANTIC CITY

AUGUST 1945

The war, my mother told me,
was over. I was five, almost six,
and girls were singing
mona lisa mona lisa men have
named you and laughing
and promising each other that
they would grab themselves
any good-looking soldier who
walked by them when they got
to the beach. I was looking
forward to building a sand
castle and wondering what it
would be like to jump into the waves
and if going to school would
be as much fun as my mother
had promised it would be.

UNVEILING

It was always my father who said
the grace before we ate. It never occurred
to me to ask why. It was the way
things were. What puzzled me,
though I never thought to ask,
was intenda juice. We never
drank it, I'd never seen it, but it
appeared in every mealtime prayer.

 I believed it was one of those
mysterious necessary words
we heard at church like salvation
and sanctify and atonement.

Years passed. A visiting preacher
came for a meal and, according
to protocol, Dad asked him
to say the blessing. He pronounced
his words precisely. He prayed:
And bless this food to its
intended use. At last I understood,
though, truth be told,
I preferred the mystery.