Lake Hebron in Fall

Lake Hebron in Fall
Lake Hebron in Fall

December 25, 2021

A Christmas Poem (2021)

A midnight clear in late December, and I couldn’t sleep,

too much anticipation of the holiday ahead, I expect; I’m

not anxious about Christmas coming – with or without me,

it will arrive - maybe just anxious over the holiday itself,

not in the mood even with the carols playing everywhere,

loud in my head in hopes of reviving some Christmas spirit,

the spirit of Christmas past with family gathered at my grandparent’s

farm, even the spirit of Christmas present spent away from family,

almost just another day these latter years, or the spirit of Christmas future,

which is harder and harder to predict these days, Christmas such

a changed holiday for me over the years, the required Christmas lists

I can’t come up with and getting the shopping done earlier, finished

by Halloween to get it mailed early for guaranteed on-time Christmas delivery –

“you know how the post office is!”, not to mention the political correctness

of Holiday Wishes so as not to offend, offending either way. And I wonder

if Santa has ordered early from Amazon for on-time delivery and does

IKEA even make mangers, if I’m ever in need of one – you never

know – though I doubt it, my need and their availability.

 
So awake on a midnight clear, clearly in distress, I dress warm

against the cold and dark, bundled up in a coat and cap and mittens,

and carefully let myself out, careful not to wake anyone else in the house,

they able to sleep through my restless wandering, it would seem.

Not too many places to go in the dark of night, midnight and clear,

so I follow a well-worn path to the water’s edge and sit myself down

on the old dock, long since pulled out of the water, by law, and gaze

out over the lake, a thin layer of ice newly formed on its surface reflecting

the stars and planets, the heavenly bodies and the mythology that formed

in man’s earlier imagining, questioning, his own answers by chance

found there in his before Christmas funk and wandering out, sleepless, too,

on a midnight clear and looking up, alone to think, to brood, to figure

it out, searching the heavens, as I am now, seeking peace at Christmas,

if not for the whole world, at least for myself, my small space in the universe.


This night’s sky has music in it, the cosmic sound of the stars and moon singing

their mythic folk tales of their own orbits and the earth shining below them,

hymns to the wonderment of this peopled planet they move around, rising

and setting, aligned by the seasons of a world of men who no longer see,

who no longer stop and wonder, except this night, this single man, alone

and listening, questioning himself, an anxious soul lost in the infinity

of space, and in his smallness, open this one night to the possibilities

of the heavens, to the mythology of the stars on a midnight clear,

a weary world in solemn stillness lying,

long suffering,

                          seeking himself,

                                                   seeking peace.


And the voices of the stars, blending, grow louder,

a crescendo rising in the quiet of this midnight clear,

the words ringing out, this love-song which they sing:

 
           And you, beneath life’s crushing load whose forms are bending low,

who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow,

Look Now! for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing.

Oh, rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing!
 

And then it was gone, the music silenced, and all I heard was a soft

breeze lightly blowing across the lake, a hush, a peace descending

this midnight clear, star filled and still, the mythology of heaven keeping watch,

as wandering out to hush the noise of strife and war, I stopped to listen,

And with my own voice now, my own song, I create anew this season of peace,

this season of joy, to find, not the latest sales, the long lists of what I want,

what I think I need, but the spirit of the Christmas message, simply put,

the angels’ song sung this midnight clear, alone under the heavens,

dressed warm against the cold and dark, sleepless, wandering and wondering:

Peace on the earth, goodwill to men from Heaven’s all gracious King. 

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