I want Christmas/I want the red and green, color of blood, color of pine.I want silver haired ladies in Frosty the Snowman, skating scene sweaters.
I want mulled spiced wine and cheese balls, presents stacked in a crazy pile;
I want elves, piquant and bell-capped, or round and apple-bellied, and
Angels -- ornate Victorians or home mades of clothespins and cotton balls.
I want the lift in my heart when I see, turning up the drive, the tree lights beckon from the window.
I want the feeling of Benny’s Hardware/new tire smell wafting from the bicycle rack/cello-gleam of dolly packages, housing bunting babies, or nymphs with curly poly-thread wigs/pink or swimming-pool blue ponies with shimmering manes and tails.
I want my arms around a wriggling, impatient toddler, dressed in snap-up peejays, her breath sweet upon my neck as I carry her on my hip to the sink, where I wipe sticky candy mess from pudgy soft fingers, the chocolate of foiled Santas from her tender mouth, from her cheeks flushed crimson from sugar, and waiting, and not having to wait any more and
Christmas early morning
Christmas lustrous night
Christmas, her shining bobbing orbs and winking lights
Tracing the snowy yard
Breathing up into a lapis sky
Where a scattering of tiny rhinestones,
The wake of angels’ wings,
Blink joy in the cold stillness.
Copyright Cathy Larson Sky 11/17/2009
