By the last red candle's light,
I ease the Christmas tree's
clutch of remembrance:
painted glass balls, holy family
and angel with her string of peppers;
adobe papoose, heavy as a paper weight;
and thin snowflake, fearful in fragility.
The white teddy has toppled, again
from its red rocker, and landed
among the sparrow eggs.
The spirit mouse soars on stubby wings,
pure bliss beaming from improbable features
as he hugs a broken violin.
Clothespin nativity goes in last,
and I leave the bead baby
in Mary's pipe cleaner embrace.
The manger looks too cold
for a whole year's wait.
Times like this, I miss
my mother's "flight to Egypt" figurine
and the red locust thorn reminder
that life and death and life go on.
Instead, I touch my tree with a spring
of paper butterflies and wonder
about God growing up,
about the boy and the man
and life spinning inside death's cocoon.
I ease the Christmas tree's
clutch of remembrance:
painted glass balls, holy family
and angel with her string of peppers;
adobe papoose, heavy as a paper weight;
and thin snowflake, fearful in fragility.
The white teddy has toppled, again
from its red rocker, and landed
among the sparrow eggs.
The spirit mouse soars on stubby wings,
pure bliss beaming from improbable features
as he hugs a broken violin.
Clothespin nativity goes in last,
and I leave the bead baby
in Mary's pipe cleaner embrace.
The manger looks too cold
for a whole year's wait.
Times like this, I miss
my mother's "flight to Egypt" figurine
and the red locust thorn reminder
that life and death and life go on.
Instead, I touch my tree with a spring
of paper butterflies and wonder
about God growing up,
about the boy and the man
and life spinning inside death's cocoon.
Lovely, Elena. I always appreciate how your poems begin with quotidian imagery and draw us in to the familiar, then lead us to the transcendent and profound.
ReplyDeleteThank you! It seems like that's what life does, doesn't it? Sometimes it surprises us with so much meaning under our ordinary little movements.
DeleteSeconding Dr Impson's praise, I would add an urgent plea to consider submitting this poem to a poetry publication. Your work is the equal of many poets who have published in prominent forums, and (if the world be just) it merits an equivalent exposure.
ReplyDeleteI dread to exaggerate, but there is in "Wondrous Absurdities" a keen visual sense, a painterly attention to detail, that puts me in mind of the late Elizabeth Bishop. With the importance difference that joy is not often a salient note in Miss Bishop's work, and is always at least subtly evident in yours.
Oh, my, thank you! And I am so glad you see joy in my poems. I compiled some for my family and was a little unnerved to find I had very few unreservedly "happy" ones--but I know joy is always in the world, and I'm glad it gets into my poems :) .
Delete