Christmas Night (Conrad Hilberry) and December (Gary Johnson)

Merry Christmas!
We have had snow all week until today.  Now it is rainy and windy and definitely not the right weather for Christmas, but oh well.   We had a lovely morning.  There is something quite different about Christmas with teenagers, and I think I like it. There was more excitement about giving this year and less about receiving.  I love watching the maturity emerge in front of us, and how rewarding.

read these:

Christmas Night  (Conrad Hilberry)

Let midnight gather up the wind

and the cry of tires on bitter snow.

Let midnight call the cold dogs home,

sleet in their fur—last one can blow

the streetlights out.   If children sleep

after the day’s unfoldings, the wheel

of gifts and griefs, may their breathing

ease the strange hollowness we feel.

Let midnight draw whoever’s left

to the grate where a burnt-out log unrolls

low mutterings of smoke until

a small fire wakes in its crib of coals.

December (Gary Johnson)

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves.
In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue
Where the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,
Enduring the cold and also the flu,
Taking the garbage out and keeping the sidewalk shoveled.
Not much triumph going on here—and yet
There is much we do not understand.
And my hopes and fears are met
In this small singer holding onto my hand.
Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark
And are there angels singing overhead? Hark. 

Cheers and Merry Christmas