Decorating the Tree

It is four thirty in the morning
and you can’t sleep.
Sleet taps on the window,
tiny knives of cold

clamoring to find their way in,
the sound like some horror movie,
Hitchcock perhaps, or Williams,
the sharpness of their sound, disturbing and dark.

Other knives keep you awake tonight however,
knives of memory, of frustration and blindness,
knives mixed in dreams vibrant, vague and loud,
so loud, you can not sleep,

and do not know why.

You surrender, climbing out
from under the warm quilt that covers you,
dress in your thick jeans and flannel,
and lumber down stairs.

There are prayers to be said,
and lights to put on, Christmas lights
you brought down from the attic the day before,
lights to remind you,

that darkness is a choice,
Even when it threatens you on all sides.
from within and without,
there are candles to burn,

lights to be strung,
beacons of joy, even
if the only one who sees,
is you.

About this poem

I did haul down the Christmas decorations last night. I did wake at four thirty this morning. And there was sleet in the rain.

But the decorations? I put in the tree and lights last night, and a few on the front porch since the weather was oddly warm. That is all however. I do my decorations over a week’s time, a few each night, prolonging the joy of it, and never feeling any pressure or deadline.

Joy should be prolonged. That’s what I think.

Tom