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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

WORD POWER

She chanted it defiantly:
"Sticks and stones
may break my bones
but names will never hurt me,"
wielded it like a warrior
backed up against a wall.
I don’t remember what
we had called her,
no doubt some ugly word
we’d heard a grown up
hurl in a rage.
Surely we didn’t know
what it meant, knew only
that it could hurt,
and when we saw
the tears on her face,
took malicious glee
in knowing we’d scored
a hit, no matter how many
times she repeated the mantra
her mother had taught
her to say.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

ENTRY ROOM

Hated getting out of bed
that winter I worked for Bob Kurtz
whose farm was up the road a ways
Hated getting up two hours dark
before the school bus came
so I could help Bob milk his damn cows
Hated what I had to do --
pour feed into the troughs
lug steaming pails to the milkhouse
fork manure into the spreader
But mostly hated
the getting up and going

Icy air hit me as I left the house
swung my legs onto my bike
lunged into the darkness and the wind
the cold amazed me every time
stunned my throat my lungs
burrowed through my clothing to the skin
I shivered--shook--ground
my teeth in useless freezing rage

Strain up the hill and--at long last--
see the gable light beckon like the star the wise men followed
park the bike outside, yank open the stable door
cattle warmth surrounds--embraces--blesses
I sob with glad relief

You're late again says Bob
but merry Christmas anyway
he tosses me a ribboned Hershey bar and grins

Some say it's sad that Christ the king
had just a cattle trough for crib
I say a warm stable on a bone-cold morning
feels like the entry room to heaven

Maybe--for the Child--the entry room to earth

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

CHRISTMASTIME AT SUNSHINE NURSING HOME

"I think they come at eight,"
Liz tells me, doling out my pills
like Mama used to hand me coins
for Sunday school, then knot them
in the corner of a hanky
to fold around my fist.

"Who's going to come?" I ask.
I think she knows I know,
knows I ask it just to keep her
in the room to talk some time away.
With Meg, across the hall,
she lingers long and chats.
I'm not like Luke says Mary was.
She kept it -- what the shepherds said
and all -- and "pondered in her heart."
I'm sick to death of that.
Pondering, I mean.
Bedfast with my busted hip,
a scrawny, clipped-wing bird,
I'd rather talk than ponder, that's for sure!

"The kids -- the carolers," says Liz.
"From Prince of Peace in town."

They come each year and crowd
inside the entranceway to sing,
huddled like a herd of frightened fawns.
Their cheeks burn rouge-red from the cold.
"So young and angel-faced," Meg will say again.
"They sing so sweet."

I'll only hear, not see, this year.
Unless ...
Once, I think, they sang
and then walked through the halls.
Some stuck their heads in doors,
said "merry Christmas" and "God bless."

I hope they will again this time.
I'll have a question for them,
maybe more than one.
"What grade are you in school?" I'll ask.
"Tell me who you are, tell me what you dream,
where you want to go, what you hope to be."
And one of them will come and sit
and talk awhile and maybe hold my hand.
And be for me an angel of the Lord
with tidings of great joy.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

YOU DECIDE

"God . . . will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more . . ."
- Revelation 21:4

Let’s say you were being
taken on a tour of heaven
shown around the place
invited to ask questions
and let’s suppose you were
tremendously impressed
(as you no doubt would be)
until finally when the tour
was ending you asked
the only question that mattered
. . . what about grief?
and your guide said
It Is Not Permitted

Would you stay?

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

CONTRAST

Our new neighbors have put up
their Christmas lights, have festooned
their shrubs with them, spread
them across the bare branches
of their maple tree, trailed them
over the ledges of their windows, strung
them fetchingly around their front
door. It’s lovely. Really, it is.
You might even, if you are given to
hyperbole, call it breathtaking.

However, it makes me think that
our usual practice of turning on
our front porch light might, this year,
be regarded, by some, as inadequate.