Taking it down...

Camilla sees and hears it all--my joy, frustration, anger, hopefulness--especially now that we are housebound in the snow. I photograph her, then out windows at the squirrels and transformed yard, the lights I keep up on the fence outside the kitchen until March. In the snow, lights are muted, abstracted. Here is the poem about my tree:

Taking it down (Sonnet)

Its needles pierce my skin like angry words,

I drag the season out with numbed regret,

The brown from bottom-up intrigues my birds--

They chatter "Christmas" so I can't forget.

Since throwing it away strikes me as sad,

I prop the tree upright against the fence,

Then coil lights around, a little mad,

Illuminating gloom, as I'm intense.

What difference does the close of winter mean?

I'll plant those flowers as I always do.

Yet somehow all the times of "in between,"

Deplete the seeds, so I have none to sew.

My mood is gray and silence is a sound

That cuts the flesh, and opens up the wound.

January 29, 2010

Posted February 3, 2010