All Winter Long the Willows Wait
All winter long the willows wait,
Nor more nor less than willing,
Glad to be, but just a bit
Entropic in their chilling.
Life longs ever for rebirth,
Awake to its long sleep,
As willows need their leaves for breath,
Numb until they weep.
Do, then, winter well beneath
More blankets than you know,
Immense as any mustard seed,
Content to dream for now,
Holding in your arms a light
As Earth slides through its bitter night,
Ever doomed to bliss and blight
Lest things too easy go.
Hail to the Season of Remembrance
Hail to the season of remembrance!
A time of time both prized and put away.
Praised be ritual and honest semblance,
Put on like clothes to keep the cold at bay.
Years of love need regular attention,
Hearing but an intermittent song.
On holidays we gather for retention,
Lest time sever ties we would prolong.
In celebration, then, of life and love,
Destiny and hope and hapless mirth,
All ought let the season in them move,
Yet dancing to the limits of rebirth,
Sustained by what we know dear friends are worth.
Happy Holidays
Happy Holidays! Whichever ones
Apply: Jewish, Christian, secular!
Practicing people are not particular,
Perhaps because all people carry buns.
Year's end's a time of darkness, true, but when
Has darkness ever darkened one small light?
Our pleasures are like candles in the night,
Lighting lamps that burn beyond our ken.
In celebration there is more than joy:
Days of feasting bind our friendships fast,
A fat and full embrace of things that last,
Yet holy in what sense one might employ,
Savoring sweet songs that spirits buoy.
Hard By Celebrations There Are Tears
Hard by celebrations there are tears,
A lonely yearning for what cannot be.
Perhaps we let it enter foolishly,
Passionate to weep for vanished years.
Yet living in the moment we are free,
Having jettisoned regrets and fears,
Open to the grace of eyes and ears,
Losing self in silent ecstasy.
In holidays there is a flow of time
Deep beneath the ritual ballet,
A tide that takes the trite and the sublime,
Yielding to the descant of the day,
Sweeping through the shallows of the bay.
Here There Are No Hearts Not Touched by Joy
Here there are no hearts not touched by joy.
A star illumines all, who see or no.
Peace is like a pang across the plain,
Passing in a moment wrought with pain,
Yet echoing in places few can go,
Harbors hard to enter or destroy.
On those who love there is but little lost.
Love's an open door to life and death.
In seasons of great joy there is a strain
Dear to those whose efforts must maintain
A sense of some bright bourne beyond each breath.
Yet even those who calculate the cost
Still dance to more delight than they can know.
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Holidays Are like Well-Tended Gardens
Holidays are like well-tended gardens:
Apart from Nature's garland for the Earth.
Precious days come often in the wild.
Priest-trees meditate in silent love.
Yet we must be digging in our gardens,
Hallowing with our hands the flesh of Earth,
Or weeding out the remnants of the wild,
Leaving the lush blossoms of our love.
In love we sweat to cultivate our gardens,
Decking out the glories of the Earth.
All days are holy--designate or wild,
Yet some we make more memorable through love.
So may our gardens bless this wild Earth!
Holidays Are Rarely Holy Days
Holidays are rarely holy days,
As celebrations tend to take up time,
Presenting a prosaic paradigm
Pressed into a crowded, day-long maze.
Yet even holidays are sometimes holy,
Having sense to pause while one is reeling,
Open to the other, hushed and healing,
Living, as one does, nor sole nor solely.
In every moment holiness abides,
Domiciled in every absent breath.
A single turn, and one sees life in death.
Yearning ends, and love unburdened rides,
Sailing like a wind upon the tides.
Secular Celebrations Seem So Spare
Secular celebrations seem so spare,
Even with religious ancestry,
As though the brick beneath what had been there
Stood unadorned where stuccoed grace should be.
Old prayers and praises now sound insincere,
No longer fitting where but reason reigns.
'Tis the season, nonetheless, for cheer;
Scoured of mystery, mystique remains.
God aside, the dark still turns towards light;
Revolving Earth still tilts into the sun;
Each gift of breath still fills one with delight;
Each child is still all being new begun.
The miracles one celebrates are questions
Implying answers too remote to know.
Nor need one not have faith in the directions
Given those whose fate it is to go
Step by careful step towards what is so.
Seldom Do We See Trees Go Out Walking
Seldom do we see trees go out walking,
Eager to drink in the morning sun.
As they lift their long arms towards the light,
Still they must be rooted in the earth,
Of one soil and water, in one place.
Night is when the restless go out walking,
Seeking dreams that cannot face the sun,
Gigantic, pulsing screams of garish light
Reeling through the agonies of Earth,
Escaping the drab certainties of place.
Each winter there's a time to go out walking,
To see the hills washed in a newborn sun,
In the pale slant of late December light,
Neither pastel dreams nor solid earth.
Gently adrift, we settle on some place,
Sunlight walking through our patch of Earth.
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