Here on the forty-ninth anniversary of the years
that are our years
you are downstairs at the piano
and I’m up here in this garret, at other keys,
trying to wrest the Good News into my annual doggerel
for the First Sunday of Christmas.
Because—as with that startling announcement to the shepherds—
it must be poetry. And it must be music.
“Glory to God in the highest…”
“Let there be spaces between your togetherness…”
said our 60’s prophet Gibran.
So I’m up here—you’re down there.
Good Spaces.
But not so far apart that I can’t hear your glissandos
wafting up the stairs, teasing my leaden verse into life.
The Word become flesh.
The morning stars singing together for joy.
Word. Singing. Joy.
Christmas Eve was kids, grandkids, a dog!
Words, Singing, Joy!
Now they’ve gone—north, south, east…
And, on the very date of our 49thyear,
just you and me.
I’m going to bring what’s left of this bourbon-and-tonic,
come down that glissando stairway,
sit in that orange chair by the piano,
and listen to you play.
