Happy Holidays - have some poems!

I should—according to someone somewhere—be wrapping presents or baking that lemon tart I promised my oldest son. I should be doing something festive! Something communal! I should be finding my solitude less delightful. None of these ‘shoulds’ belong to me, though. They pop sometimes on the periphery of my mind, but I’m mostly ignoring them. Instead, I’ve been relishing having a couple days to myself and have been writing rather a lot of poems. Here are a few of them—my gift to you this season. The first two were inspired by prompts (“the table” and “dreamscape”) from Kaitlin Curtice. The second two just rose up like smoke as I sat by a fire.

Photo by Cullan Smith on Unsplash

The Table	

It was Thanksgiving at the table,
and we walked in,
my son and I, and your
head jerked up, and you
spoke the first words you’ve uttered
since those angry texts.
You were eager to talk now,
elated to claim that “there is no room,”
which didn’t seem right
when I tallied the chairs,
but what’s the use in tallying?
I’ve never wanted this fight.
So we walked back out,
my son and I, and we
sat on the couch and
made tables of our laps,
and I replay that moment sometimes,
the sting of it and
the wondering why, but also
the warmth of my child
and the plate on my lap
and the knowing
that my heart is a table,
and there is plenty of room -
even for you.


Solstice

The world is matte and blurred from smoke
or haze or the reluctance of dawn
after the longest night,
as if the land had tossed and turned,
then finally slept
and now can’t bear
the thought of light
so soon.

I walk into the sleep-blurred world
like into a dream.
I crunch my feet on frozen mud
to see if I’m awake
and puff great clouds of breath
to know that I’m alive.

A dog barks over and over,
Three short yips, then a vowel as long
as a rooster’s tail.
The dog crows and breaks the dawn
of the first day
after the longest night.

The dark lid begins to lift.
A blue eye peers through heavy clouds.
Today, I will pinch myself
and remember that I am awake.
Today, I will pinch myself
and remember to dream.


Lunar Halo

There’s a ring in the sky,
Glowing and round.
A black belly,
its navel gibbous
from the pulling of skin.
Jupiter is a freckle.
The clouds make silver stripes—
stretch marks.
Love marks,
I once heard them called.
I have twelve in front.
I can’t account for what’s behind.
Uranus is invisible to the naked eye.


Kindling

My feet are bare and cold against
the cold, bare ground. My hands
snap twigs for kindling.
If I worked faster, if I had more hands,
the sound might be mistaken
for the crackling of fire. 
I wish you were here with me,  
though I don’t know who you are.
Someone
who knows
to sidle up to my
solitude
without making too much noise. 

I’d love to hear from you in the comments! How are you navigating this season, with its frequent undercurrents of too-much and never-enough? What’s feeling nourishing or joyful right now? What’s feeling hard? What have you created lately? What are you dreaming of creating in the season ahead?