A Seasons Greeting.

  A Christmas Poem. 

Toward the winter Solstice.

Timothy Steele

Although the roof  is just a story high ,

it dizzies me a little  to look down.

I lariat-twirl  the cord of  Christmas lights

and cast it to the weeping birches crown;

A dowel into which I’ve screwed a hook

Enables me to reach, lift, drape, and twine

the cord among the boughs  so that bulbs

will accent the tree’s elegant design.

Friends, passing home from work, or shopping,

will pause                                                         

And call up commendations  or critiques.

I make adjustments. Though a potpourri

of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews and Sikhs

We  all are conscious  of the time of year;

We all enjoy its colourful displays.

Some say that L.A. doesn’t suit the Yule,

But the UPS vans now like magi make

Their present laden rounds, while fallen leaves

are gaily  resurrected in their wake;

The desert lifts  a full moon from the east

And issues a dry Santa Ana breeze,

And valets at chic restaurants will soon

Be tending flocks of cars and  SUVS.

And as the neighbourhoods  sink into the dusk

The fan palms scattered  all across the town stand

More calmly prominent, and this place seems

A vast oasis in the Holy land.                           

This house might be a caravansary,                     

The tree a kind of cordial fountainhead               

of welcome, looped and decked with                     

necklaces                                                                  

And ceintures of green, yellow, blue, and red.          

Some wonder if the star of Bethlehem                     

Occurred when Jupiter and Saturn crossed;          

It’s comforting to look up from this roof

And feel that, while all changes, nothing’s lost,

To recollect that in  antiquity             

The Winter Solstice fell in Capricorn

And that, in the Orion Nebula,     

From swirling gas, new stars are  being born.

   

Timothy Steele was born in 1948 in Burlington, Vermont. He received a B.A. in English in 1970 from Stanford University, followed by a Ph.D. in English and American Literature in 1977 from Brandeis University. His first collection of poems, Uncertainties and Rest, published in 1979, attracted attention for it’s colloquial charm and it’s allegiance to meter and rhyme at a time when free verse was the predominant style. Steele has published three additional collections: Sapphics against Anger and Other Poems (1986), The Color Wheel (1994), and most recently, Toward the Winter Solstice (2006). The first two books were reprinted in a joint volume, Sapphics and Uncertainties: Poems 1970-1986 (1995). Poets.Org

 

 Tree decorated by my 9 year old daughter.

This seasons joy to one and all from The Parrish Lantern.

   pomes  ALL SIZES 

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