This year I’m craving an intimate Christmas.
Just me, settling down with my Jesus, alone.
I’ll light a candle, and sit at the table.
I’ll eat a sumptuous supper for one.

I’ll listen to music about His arrival.
I’ll wonder at prophecies finally come true.
I’ll ponder the star in the cold dark sky distance,
and realize that I long to follow it too.

I’ll thank Him, for blessings He’s heaped on me daily;
and those yet wrapped, waiting by tomorrow’s tree.
We’ll laugh at some memories. Weep over sorrows,
and smile at the children all wiggly with glee.

My spirit is starved for this intimate Christmas.
Just Mary, and Joseph, a shepherd or two,
and me sitting cross-legged in straw by a manger
in love, and in wonder such love could be true!

What joy, as I anticipate such a Christmas:
The music of centuries, silent, and free!
Intense hours have rendered each peace-filled one sacred.
This year, I need solitude: Jesus, and  me.

March

Under the wind, a bass drum roar!
Spring! bubbling up from the wells of the deep!
A sigh in the trees, still muffled with sleep.
Echoes that roll from Earth’s underground store.

Toss to bare branches the windborne sound.
Though deathly silent beneath our feet,
wrapped in white like a winding sheet,
Winter broods bitterly over the ground,

a pulse is quickening far below
and a scent in the air...and we know, we know...

Daughter


Across one thousand
miles of wire
your counterfeit smile
races
grips my throat
smirking
like
the enemy:

Hand of my flesh
Reaching from the phone
Slathering
fashionable
lies.

I need
to bathe.

I ache
to smash
the ****** receiver now

To hold
until I crush
You
My beloved Mirror...
This mirror
where I used to find
my
self