Christmas Mourning
I loved Christmas. Every year
Bach’s oratorio filled the church,
the boys’ voices soaring skyward. We drank
mulled wine at the market, lighted
candles on the wooden pyramids,
carefully set up mom’s collection of nutcrackers, carved
by hand in small villages in the ore mountains.
We baked Grandma’s cookies,
smelled the incense in the wooden smokermen,
and sang the old carols, mom at the piano,
we all perfectly harmonizing. Gathered
around the big table, extended to fit everybody,
we shared meals and love.
All this is decades
and an ocean away. Now Christmas
means loneliness
in a land that is still
foreign, when the homesickness,
held at bay during the year,
flares
and distance bites
like a bitter wind.
Date: 11/18/2018
Contest: CHRISTMAS MOURNING
Sponsor: PS Awtry
Copyright © Agnes Krampe | Year Posted 2018
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