Christmas: Three Fours for Twelve

Part I

-1-

One anonymous

treetop complainer hollers at

the bubbling blackbirds in pines.

-2-

Self-named chickadees

invisible in evergreens

sing of a warm Christmas day.

-3-

Spring in Winter

fills rills with sparkling

whispering water.

-4-

Still unbent by snow

green ferns sprawl uphill

on rust red pine needles.

Part II

-5-

It is here, today,

a day of peace:

blow winds, this,

to places far way.

-6-

WWI Christmas truce:

enemies dropped their arms

and used arms to embrace:

‘This is good;

let’s just go to our homes.’

-7-

It is as hard to make peace

as to clutch

a fist full of water.

-8-

Today’s news, religion without god;

this summer, god without religion;

and for some, the two bind together:

all seeking peace.

Part III

-9-

Tawny, fluffy hens

peck their breakfast,

expect no less nor more

of this day.

-10-

A house barks

when I approach and pass;

no good news for the dog inside.

-11-

Does the spring warmth

of this Christmas day

blow green dreams

into the hollows of bears?

-12-

The main road bustles with cars

speeding to Christmas;

I turn back into the wild wind.

* 

The

warm wind

has blown the sky to blue

and memories to mind:

fifteen I am sticky, walking a hot camp path,

thirty strolling on Nantucket with friends,

twenty off-season with friends on a gull-cold beach

ten a child singing the endless 12 Days of Christmas

to a patient audience:

at sixty this is my twelve

for patient readers.