Ghost of Christmas Past Challenge

Poet David K.Wheeler has posted an interesting challenge-- to participate in this challenge, click here!  Here's my offering:

Annunciation

At daybreak I hear a footfall

In the cold grass,

I feel an immanence, the threat

Of an eclipse, a veil

Over the sky

I step into my living room

Where my small faux tree

Last glittered

With its tiny white lights,

Its heralding angel

Against the gladdened

White walls

Of my own home

There, on Colorado’s pale blue

Morning

An eight-foot Alpine Fir

It has taken hours to trim

There are packages everywhere.

A shining gold bicycle.

A vintage Star of Bethlehem quilt

Folded, tied with a red satin ribbon

Instantly, I reach for my clothing,

My keys, to escape

With the dog to the river,

To let the cold air wake me,

Searing my lungs

But the door

Has swollen shut

And then I see my guest:

She sits with her back to me

In the wicker rocker,

Reading,

From the immense

1870 family bible.

  

ii

I know this intruder;

I once slipped from her

Turning and eager

Like a dolphin

Lay in her arms

Reaching for her voice

Once she sat with me in the car

driving out to the half-empty

house on the market

Where I demanded

She sort the picture frames

Tumbling

From the walk-in closet

Later, I said to her

on the telephone

to the nursing home

“No more chocolates

The next day she collapsed

In the beauty parlor

After the funeral

At the garage sale

I sold the Limoges china,

The bird’s eye maple desk,

That which she would have

Passed to me

For thirty pieces of silver.

iii

We sip eggnog laced

with brandy

In a snowman cup;

A pine knot crackles

In the fireplace.

We muse over the packages

Hanging a chipped

Gilded angel ,

a hand-made miniature

rocking horse

on the lowest, barest branches

I surrender

to her steady, green-eyed

gaze: I anoint

her bruised feet,

I brush her dark hair.