Christmas Trees Past

CHRISTMAS TREES PAST

Sometime after Epiphany,
Bern takes the Christmas trees outside
and cuts off the branches
until only the trunk remains.

And the trunks stick around,
sometimes for years.

I was just out on the back porch,
smoking a cigarette,
(I know, I know, but I do!)
and there was a trunk from last year.

At first I thought of it as forlorn,
stripped, abandoned.
But then I looked through the window
and saw the tree for this year
in all it's glory.
Sparking with lights--
mostly white but colored in the middle--
which Bern did, of course
(I have no gift for lights...)
and spangled with ornaments
from years gone by.

Mimi's first Christmas ornament is there
(Josh's is long destroyed
but we keep it's wounded self'
on the mantle where the stockings hang).
The balloon lady who reminds
me of e.e. cumming's
"little lame balloon man",
who "whistled far and wee".

So many winged things--
angels and birds and a flying elephant
and soaring winged Hindu gods,
and angels of all kinds,
all kinds. Angels, always.

And the strawberry orniment
Josh got in pre-school,
when all the other kids
got toys of some kind.
It has ruptured much
and Bern has done surgery on it
from time to time.

Each ornament tells a story
of some Christmas past.

And I love them,
love them all.

Even the trunks that lean
against our deck.

Christmas present is infused
with Christmas' past.
Until all are one.

One. Christmas. Always.