Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Winter Blue

 


Blue-tinged,
the "big blue hills"
of my childhood
taking me back to early mornings
on the way to school,
how the air was so cold
it froze the hair in my nostrils,
how my coat wasn't warm enough;
I can still remember
the sound my boots made
crunching through the snow.

Blue,
midnight Mass when my little sister
was Mary in the nativity scene,
with her long blonde hair,
me singing in the choir,
full of hope and melancholy
that some sort of Christmas
would come to be.

Blue,
grown-up kids scattered
across the land,
too far to come home
for Christmas any more.
Christmas magic dims
without small children
with wonder in their eyes.

Blue,
my sister and I
watching the family video
(one last time?)
remembering how our mother wept
the last time we watched it with her -
gone, gone,
all those happy years.
Blue,
for almost everyone in the video
has died.
We watch their laughing faces
coming out the door,
the film grainy, disappearing.
Soon they will appear
no more.

For Desperate Poets: Christmas Blues

10 comments:

  1. Such loss really hits harder during special days and holidays...families and children with wonder in their eyes... sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yep, these are Christmas blues - such a bittersweet, such good things remembered now as lost. Sigh. A full heart holds both ... maybe for that such blues are worth it. Thanks for joining in this week Sherry, lonely crew.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Christmas really is a time of nostalgia for times past. Hope you are well, Sherry!

    ReplyDelete
  4. That last comment was from Ingrid!

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is very poignant, Sherry....all your recollections of Christmases past. So much to be thankful for, as well as so much to be sad about at this time of year!

    ReplyDelete
  6. A blue poem indeed, Sherry, but then Chrismas tends to be a time of mixed emotions.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh sherry! Can it be that eyes grow too tired to let that wonderment of youth still be seen in them? Must there be that grainy fading film so we can heap sadness onto the sleigh? The snow is falling harder now. Oh please let there still be a candle burning in the window…

    ReplyDelete
  8. Well, yes, re-watching the favorite movie after the person who enjoyed it most is gone is sort of bluish. I hope the rest of the winter season brightens your blues!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Dont worry, friends, I am not nearly as blue as my poem. All of the losses are real, but we have been given so much, too, one can only be grateful for it all.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sad, yet so much tenderness in the edges of these bluetiful captures! I see fragments of silver and gold among the blues.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for visiting. I appreciate it and will return your visit soon.