Bright Christmas

And still, I was surprised.

The last forecast that I had seen had not predicted

a white Christmas.

But as I looked out on the still darkness

of Christmas Eve morning,

a blanket of white to my wondering eyes

did appear.

What else to call it?

The snow was nearly half as thick

as the comforter on my bed.

Snow so soft, nestling over the brown edges of my front  yard.

So I pulled on my long johns

and threw on a scarf

and trudged out into the snow

to see the matter for myself –

it came up nearly past the soles of my shoes.

A running rabbit had gone on before me

tracking along the sidewalk

and I saw another one hopping -

and more tracks on every side.

How many rabbits does it take

to make all of those tracks?

And how many flakes

of exceedingly scattered flurries

to make a snowfall?

And yet still they drifted down in the streetlamp light,

ice crystals grazing my cheeks and eyelashes.

I remembered again last night

when I was taking the compost to the pile,

a trace of moisture on my face,

thinking that maybe it could snow,

it was quite cold enough.

And still I was surprised.

At the rate that the snow was still falling

it must have started before I had even gone to bed.

Everything that has fallen down before me

must have once risen from the certain expected warmth

of the roaring fire of the sun,

I supposed.

The sun yet unrisen on this new already bright day,

But I could see no signs of actual rising in the east.

Instead I saw strings and strings

and strings of Christmas lights

strung everywhere with abandon,

lighting the way apparently only for me.

Not even the rabbits were stirring downtown,

though the public workers were clearing

the walks for the last of the Christmas shoppers

to come.

And there were abundant toys waiting

on blankets of white fabric in the toy store

with paper cutout snowflakes dangling from strings,

and a few homeless folks were warming themselves

in the bagel shop next door,

already preparing themselves to face yet another day on the cold street

or the warm public library.

A few cautious cars, - headlights on only to be seen

and not to see by –

crawled on by on all fours on salted city streets.

And still the Christmas lights cheered me as I walked,

the snow so sparkling under the sparkly lights.

And yet I also wondered at coal firing plant on the hill.

Everything from so deep down must come up to be burned,

I supposed.

I could see steam, glowing from below,

billowing from stacks I couldn’t see for the trees

that were flanking the river bank.

I crossed over to the other side under the tall street lights

along the bridge.

My shadow preceded me, then followed me,

then it led the way yet again.

And again.

There was no darkness or true silence in the night,

the city still hummed,

even though there was indeed no rush at this hour.

Still, I was not really surprised to have seen

the store windows all bright

and I could almost read the future

by all of the bright shining in the darkness.

After all, how many LEDs does it take

to cover us all in light while we are still sleeping,

mostly?

Finally. I had gone farther than any human yet awake,

and I was trudging through trackless snow

as I walked along the levee trail

above the river running in deep blackness below.

I looked back over river

and through the downtown lights.

Grandmother’s house had only

as single light burning on a pole,

but the great burning had already then begun.

Still the trees were so pretty with

a catching of white on the skyward

facing branches,

even though it was all bare bones below.

And the shadows they cast from the amber

lights on Elm Street would not cause me to

trip and fall.

I might have made a snow angel,

I supposed,

but I wasn’t and I didn’t.

And then I saw a weaving line of tracks

from some creature that had been stirring

a few falling flakes ahead of me

as I made my own size twelve tracks by the river.

It might have been a possum,

it’s tail sharply cutting through

a half-an-inch of snow,

I supposed.

And I might have been a man.

I recrossed the bridge.

A couple of joggers in reflective vests

crossed the empty street in front of me.

The workers were still making the world

safe for consumers, all of their machines

running on fossil fuel.

But I did see one man on foot

scattering some melting chemical

from a five-gallon bucket.

What else to do?

The sky was lightening from a rising sun

as I turned onto my own block.

I followed my own tracks up the driveway

that I would later use to back my Prius down

to join all of the other countless Priuses on the roads.

How many roads must a million Priuses drive down

before they call it enough saved energy?

And I was indeed nearly joyful that my house was as warm as the next one,

all of us plugged snugly into the still coal-fired grid.

And still I had been surprised by the whiteness of the white.

So I plugged in my own string of Christmas lights.

I will make merry and bright –

and resolve to try to be merry with less.

And so, Merry Christmas to all -

a little hope still goes a long way –

and we’ll just have to see if we can learn to live with enough in time.

So here’s to us not ending up with nothing but coal in our stockings

in a New Year that might yet surprise us,

perhaps, in spite of ourselves.

But it is up to us, everyone. 

Oh, say, can you see?

 

This tale may signify nothing,

it has no real sound nor fury,

it’s merely about a flag,

once planted.

I had found a light blue T-shirt

lying on the ground,

and with an idle thought

tied it with some twine

onto a dried length of cane from my yard,

about twenty feet.

I went back to Central Middle School

and drove the end of the cane pole down

into the pile of woodchips in the garden,

not to stake any claim,

but because the garden

seemed to want a flag.

The T-shirt flew

in the wind on windy days -

flapping, billowing, fluttering -

and the T-shirt rested quietly

when the wind was absent.

In time the cane

rotted off at the base

and I drove down the remaining flag pole

down into the compost pile again,

just a few feet shorter.

I watched the flag flying

or resting

over the days and months.

Each time the flag of sorts fell over

I drove the cane down

until the end of the pole did meet the solid earth,

the wood chip pile holding upright

the slowly fading flag aloft.

And then, there came a day

when there was not much length of cane

left to drive.

And so I wedged the remaining pole

in a nearby wire arbor on which squash

or other vining vegetables might gain support.

And so the flag still flew

when the wind blew

and it rested when the wind

was absent.

For one month,

then another,

and then many more months,

until that simple

T-shirt flag had flown

in the Central garden for more than a year.

And now it is the winter solstice

and as the earth tilts once more 

towards the sun, I must ask:

Oh say, can you see,

by the dawn’s early light,

or by the afternoon sun’s bright shining,

or even by twilight’s last gleaming,

or perhaps just barely in the dark night

when no students were watching,

if my faded blue flag was still there?

I only ask this question

because I still wonder

if we are indeed the home of the free and the brave.

But for now, in my own homely neighborhood, at least,

yet still this old banner doth wave,

at least signifying that flags wave in the wind

and they rest when the wind is absent.

And signifying,  just perhaps,

that we ourselves  might indeed be steadfast

and hold the freedom of our children

ever more dear.

~ 30 sec flag video