Christmas

It’s another Christmas

My love

White doves and red holly berries

Making us jolly by custom

Decorate and celebrate

Our

Illusions of hope

And

As always

From the eves of our old farmhouse

Hang icicles

As pale blue as your eyes.

They remind us that

Harm

Ever present

Is the zero sum game,

The bane of hope.

It will never be the same again

When

All beloved is treading

On that slippery slope of ending.

*

Nothing moves in the snowy cold

Except a gray fox

Boldly lopping and diving for voles

In the frozen north pasture.

Survival is an iffy

And

Dangerous game these days,

Warm and comforted inside

A log fire burning

We feel

All the same

Safe for the

Renewal,

The new life,

The spring

Lying feral and fertile

Under the blue snow and white skies.

I wait for the climbing roses

Growing to be free

From the broken down gardens of the old order.

I see their wildness

Escaping

Overgrown

Over the log-chopped fencing

Running green

Into the marsh that has reclaimed

The orchard,

Finding its ancient passage back

To the Waloomsac River

And

Vaguely

Blesses us

In its insistence of the natural way.