Home is the place where all hearts turn
When Christmas comes again

The place that draws you through the fog
The snow the wind and rain

To take your place beside the fire
Wherever it may be

And hope for peace, and good cheer
And gay festivity

Year by year the same old words
Of greetings we repeat

But never seem to tire
When friends and families meet

So rejoice right through to Christmas night
And  over the world's dark shadows
Cast some some heavenly light

Keith Wilson. Windermere, UK 2016

He's the hand I felt on my shoulder as the tornado went over me . He's the one who saved me from choking to death in my own ***** . He's the one who sat beside me on the mountaintop as I cried over my wrongs . And if I ever kneeled before him he would take my hands and raise me so I could kiss his cheek . Who is God ? My best friend who has saved me time and time again . Who understands my limits and my failures but forgives me each and every time . One who is always there for me to lean on when I am tired , lonely , discouraged . One who has shown me heaven and promised a place there for me .
Who is God ? He is in me , my past , my present , and future . I am nothing without my God .

They still weep;
Not as often in those early days
When the telegram delivery boy,
Every bit as foreboding as the Grim Reaper,
Had arrived at their particular doorstep,
But at odd, importune times:
When the light shines just so in his old bedroom,
(Some instances just as he left it,
Other times clean and empty
As if never occupied at all)
The sound of boys playing baseball
In the field on the Klondike Road,
The bells at the Methodist Church
Ringing for another young couple.
Still, the world rolls along
In its own diffident manner:
There are cars, butter, and gasoline now,
Young men who were at Midway and Omaha Beach
Are back on the line at the mill,
Their mothers plan weddings
And buy dresses from Larson’s down in Ridgway.
They may pause briefly if they catch something
In the eye of a friend
Who has no need to buy frocks
Or reserve banquet halls,
And they will say, casting down their eyes a bit
Life goes on, I guess.
Yes, but they still weep

When the moon hovers hallucinated
on the post canal
breaking in bubbles of fish breath
the white widow of the night
revives her long dead tongue
to lick the scales of your skin
pulling you into her bed of nails
making love with you the whole night
leaving you bruised and insatiate
when they find your shadow
scouring the edge of the canal
with her name on its lip.

The prairie sun hung low,
Slipping toward the hill,
Just touching the top of the lone cottonwood
Leaning away from the country road.

He stood in the doorway,
Removing the tattered chore coat,
Taking off his muddy boots,  
Saw his mother,
Standing, looking out the window,
Half expectant in her pose,
Half turning toward him,
Where he stood.

She'd looked out that window
More than 25,000 times, he figured,
Watching the ends of days,
Year after year,
Storms coming, or no,
Soft breezes blowing,
Opened, she'd listen to the prairie sounds:
Coyotes and owls at night,
Meadowlarks and roosters in morning,
Hawks shrieking and cicadas by day,
And people sounds:
Children and grandchildren laughing, crying,
Neighbors closing the latch and coming near,
Her husband, clearing his throat...
The memories returned at the window,
While she was standing there.

Through the galvanized screen the world filtered in:
Earth-rich scent of coming rain,
Strong tobacco smells of men lounging after lunch,
New-stacked hay beside the barn,
Springing grass and budding trees....

She'd waited at that window, too,
For her husband to return,
Or one of the ten boys and girls
She'd birthed and raised in this old house.
At 97, she was nearly blind,
Could only hear a little,
Spoke seldom now,
Covered her swollen legs with a woolen blanket,
Even in the heat of summer.

Her idea of exercise were precarious journeys:
The toilet,
The table,
The bed,
Her old easy chair,
And the western window.

He, the youngest son, a bachelor,
Comical in his words,
Steady in his ways,
Owned an easy-going laugh that set his friends at ease,
Careful in his manners, never meaning to impose,
Ever ready to lend a neighbor a hand,
Became the one to stay with "Mother,"
After his father died the lingering death
Of a man who'd lived to groan that he'd
Survived a bull's trampling.
(Well, "survived" was just a word, meaning
Prolonged misery preceding untimely death.)

"Mother, what you lookin' at?" he asked,
Fresh in from chores,
Wanting supper,
Knowing vinegar pie and hamburger hotdish
Were waiting in the oven
Because he'd placed them there.

"It must be time for breakfast!"
She turned from the window,
One frail finger pointing at the sun,
Struggling now in the branches of the tree,
"The sun is coming up!"

He stood behind her.
"Where does the sun come up every day, Mother?"
He asked softly.

She looked at him, confused.

"Yer lookin' out the west," he spoke again,
"The east is over there."
He pointed to the other side of the house,
And she, uncertain, looked again
At the dying sun, now setting,
Easing carefully into the western pool of night.

A few high clouds glowed red, tinging now in grays.

"Sun's going down, Mother, and nearly time for bed."

He put the plates on the table,
Walked her to her place,
Helped her sit,
Scooped their plates and cut slices
Of the home-made pie.

Red sky at night meant he might get the last
Few truckloads off the home place tomorrow
Before wind or storm flattened everything to the ground.

Tonight it was supper and settling his mother to bed,
Washing some dishes, and putting things away,
Before some reading and a solitary evening...
Before the coming of another day.

for John, it came with
the raucous roar of crowds when he scored
the winning touchdown; for Willie,
when he drove in the final run

for Paul, it came when he charged
a *** bunker on a chunk of rock from hell
he heard no applause--only the rat-tat-tat
of the gun that mowed him down

for Anna, it came with no
sound and fury; only a gentle thank you kiss
from her girl who told her she had been
the best mother in the world

for Rafael, his final hurrah was humble:
a smile from the lady who handed him his last check
after he mopped his last floor, cleaned his final
porcelain bowl, after a patient half century

for me, I don't know when it will be...
perhaps it occurred long ago, in an arena
or on a field I didn't recognize as a place of honor
or perchance tomorrow, when I learn to die

(for Alice Bridgwood)


At some point, we simply say to hell with it:
Whether undone by the shortcomings at our craft
Or by the simple bulk of our mere humanity,
We come to the conclusion that certain mysteries of the universe
Shall remain exactly that—oh, we’ll still have
The odd glimpse of the Platonic,
The glimmering flicker of epiphany
Bestowed upon us a few frames at a time,
Grainy and Zapruder-esque,
But, by and large, we will remain sheepish
As some television weatherman who,
Though ostensibly trained to understand the behaviors
Of sluggish storms making their way lugubriously from the Southwest
Or brisk mid-February Alberta lows,
Must admit he, too, was bamboozled
By the sudden deluge or foot-plus of snow.

What, then, do we make of one
To whom the inscrutable calculus of the spheres
Is an open book, as simple as connect-the-dots
Or some child’s paint-by-numbers
(But augmented with shading and shadow
Until the picture is not simple rote coloring
But something else, something finer and all her own),
Whose words move us to follow where she may lead,
Like medieval peasants, dirt poor and bewitched,
Who flocked to the Holy Land
Following the charismatic little shepherd child,
All hayseed and bucolic charm
(Yet all of that simply myth arriving whole cloth,
A mish-mash of sloppy scholarship and errant translation;
She’d have sussed it in an instant)
Hoping that some smattering of his grace
Would trickle down upon them,
Not unlike the prayer of the farmer,
His lands parched and salted, hearing thunderstorms
Rumbling in terrible grandeur in the distance,
Hopes the odd drop or two reaches his fields.

Bring me your
orphan memories
and I will stitch them
into a chapter of time

Stepping fearlessly into
empty air
walking the tightrope
of certain death

Drawing memory
into the web of this moment
Bleeding it out into meaning

While sleeping
While dreaming

These poor words
strain to tell a tale
a shout out to eternity
and it is a clarion call
from the dawning
to the setting of the sun
announcing a state of grace
that surely will ripple
through time.

The night calls sweetly to us
Bids us sleep well
and find courage in the day.