People seldom sat in her,
The Doll Chair
She lived by the hearth,
Facing outward,
She partnered the television
Two sibling watchers,
One on squat claw feet,
The other a grey orb
Observing the Living Room
At my grandparents’ house,
With its worn Regency grandeur
Its well-trod carpets
And fragrances delicious and kind,
Waved inside by the swinging kitchen door.
On Christmas morning
The doll I wanted,
Had longed for
All those other seasons
Appeared in the Doll Chair,
Its small arms extended,
Next to my sister’s choice,
And our two Christmas stockings
Bulging with treats.
That was the miracle of having.
But before came the miracle of waiting.
Christmas eve,
On the foldout in Pop Pop’s study
Sister and I lay bug-eyed
While headlights from our cars
And the neighbors’ cars
Lit the darkness behind white nylon curtains
Made dancing panels on the high ceiling
And whispers came and went
Muted fluttering from the other
Regions of the limitless house.
In the mysterious night
I lie sleepless, alive to every sound.
My sister’s quiet breath beside me
I can’t wait but I do
Knowing that my wish is going to come true
That magic is about to happen
I am present to the velvet darkness
In an ever-new, ever changing way.
And it seems to me now
That my child mind believed less in Santa
Than in my ability to make appear,
By my dreaming and my desiring,
The most cherished of earthly things.
The Doll Chair a portal
For the bright, the new, the shining.
She is mother love
She is the full-petaled rose of possibility
Of gifting, of renewal.
On a New Year’s morning she reminds me of what is gone
And the possibility of what yet might be
Unseen now
But roiling in my heart to appear
Tiny flashes of clarity in the sleepless night
Reassurance of what may come
What may yet come.
copyright cathylarsonsky jan 2011
