Christmas Cometh

Christmas Cometh by Ingrid Showalter Swift Through a wind that never stops blowing the house holds fast to the light flickering candles in each window hope calling out over a canvas of landscape base painted in solid white Auburn gold shadows creep along the horizon where morning and night crest like waves upon each other frothing sudden color in thier blending fight Ruby red undertones flame up across the frost filled clouds then die away slowly to golds and then ice gray and then moonless white in the lights of a passing car... flakes ignite..dazzle and die away again an owl ...its bright black eyes against round white face calls out "ahhhhooooooooooo" swoops down across the vast field its feathers struck out white like white flames held aloft..........or flashing silver polished metal against black forest and gray sky... against the now darkening of night and I am reminded of a book from my childhood that read... "Who.... who... who ....are you?" The candles flicker on dainty dancers of hope leaping and falling and leaping again... so like myself...I have to wonder... do they never learn? do they never give up? Turning from the window I smile at all the richness of the bright within the colors of red and green... the sparkle of packages and bows not yet even wrapped but that will lie beneath my tree in time the crackle of a wood fire...the smells of pine bows and of things I have collected to celebrate these days and I am merry ...in my soul ever hopeful ever believing...ever true ever listening ...... for your key hit hoping it will still come someday... if I am lucky...perhaps before Christmas has grown cold in the hearth and heart once more the owl calls out again "Who who ......who are you?" and I know who I am I am a woman who loves a man and for him I keep on the light and ration like gold the oil