A starscape masked by glare below.
Plastic snowmen adrift on lawns,
likely as palm trees in tundra.
Roofs and walls festooned
with chasing, flashing fairy bulbs;
through demented twinkledom
Santa’s reindeer prance, energy no object.
The ritual of choosing trees:
spruce and pine and fir and larch.
Each held at arm’s length, inspected;
we debate the swag of their branches,
which shape best suits our ceiling height.
Home then uplifted, ourselves
and tree, to root out last year’s baubles.
At mass, the ageing faithful.
Poinsettia wreathes with red
the pillars of a half-full church,
where words remembered
serve their familiar purpose.
In metal brackets RIP cards -
all recent - six to each pew’s rear.
Now leafless boughs handwrite
shadows on hardened, frosty earth.
And darkened corners are lit up
as families gather, or recall
their scattering, around the box.
In the litter of torn paper
our struggle to unwrap meaning.
