Author: Kay Foley

Winter sun burns brilliant
lights every crack of my world
melts the frost on my windowpanes 
this morning of the Eve of Christmas.
My two sons and two dogs sleep
only I to make a sound 
scratching pen across paper
while the old furnace hums
no bird calls
nor car rushes 
no dog barks.
For all I know the world
could have stopped.

Perfume of frasier fir wanders through our house.
Lit with lights and hung with a riot of ornaments 
that tree catalogs our lives.
The crazy scribbled paper box
the clay cookie cutter circles
the flour paste painted blob
my sons made as boys.
Clay stars and gingerbread men
from my own first tree
felt birds I stitched as a child
assorted music themed ornaments
given me by piano students
the treetop angel disheveled and 
stained (but still lovely) sewn by the 
long gone mother of a friend.
All these I‘d never forego 
for something more stylish
for they tell a hundred stories of 
Christmases past and those who
were present.

Winter’s come and some
celebrate the lengthening of days
but I like the depth of winter
the shortened days
the long dark nights
the feeling of being in for the night
pajama’d and curled into
various smooth shapes 
together with my dogs
sleeping dreaming 
growing stronger 
longer 
deeper roots
like a tulip or a rose.

My oldest sleeps on the couch downstairs.
I sleep in his old room.
I wonder what he dreams
what he dreamed when he slept here.
The windows face East 
sun in the morning 
moon at night
in this almost tiny room
and my bed barely fits
but I would not now give up
sun in the morning
moon at night
for any old big room
facing any way but East.

Who calls again and again
outside my window
answered distantly by another?
What pretty bird sits on that
branch insisting to be 
heard
acknowledged
answered?
 
When I went to fill the feeder 
yesterday the noisy commotion of birds
in the unruly brush and tangled vines
across the creek abruptly stopped.
Keeping things hush-hush, as if I,
dull-witted human that I am,
would be able to fathom 
and somehow foil their plans.
 
In their last hours both my mother 
and my friend Pam had silently 
retreated to some place within
or was it beyond
as unfathomable to me 
as the language of birds.

Woke in a cheerful mood wondering
if I might have dreamed a Lovely Thing
that is now hidden even to me
and if so can it be true that
we have hidden pots of happiness
within us of which even we cannot know
and if so then where do they come from
and would they be ruined if we
ever found them out
the spell broken
and if so if so if we leave them
wherever there untouched
could we perhaps  now
and again and again say
Take me (blindfolded) there,
your secret’s safe with me
and have a little visit in
SecretHappyDeluxeFunLand
and return to find our regular selves
alive and well and unaccountably happy?
Well?  Could we?

What might this breaking day hold?
Certainly some sort of conundrum
perhaps a story or two
with what might possibly be
a heartbreaking conclusion.
A quick flash of realization
followed without fail by 
perseveration upon its finer points.
A sudden inner voyage prompted by
an old worn suitcase
picture of a boat
smell of cedar
title of a book
notes of a song.
Most likely all of these
will write themselves at random
and without warning upon
the unwritten agenda of this day 
for that is the Way Things Are 
and the way they will remain 
forever and ever world without end.  
Amen. 

Cold winter morning 
grass spiked with frost
and the sky is a white blanket.
For twenty-four hours now
my eyes have sprung hot tears
at the thought of children 
who go without.
Sleeping, my dreams bring
small lost children clinging
to me in a crazy landscape
of riches and abundance.
To what do I owe this visitation
and where do I take it?
Sun breaks through that white cover
as if to signal an epiphany 
but I am either too simple
or not simple enough
to grasp it.

A gaggle of laughing girls gathered
around a Salvation Army kettle ringing
bells in their pink and yellow sweaters
bobbing poufy yarn balls at the ends 
of their colorful knitted hats.
Innocent girls who know nothing 
of the troubles of those Others
for whom the bells are rung.
Happy little girls having a jolly time
on the sidewalk of a fancy street
its shops prettily lit with Christmas lights
and cheerful banners urging All to buy.
Good for those girls, I say.
Let them be innocent and gay
as children everywhere should be.
Let them stay warm in their sweaters
have bowls of hot soup and cookies too
as all children should if only all could.
Let them grow up strong enough 
to gather the others into their arms one day
wrap them up in warm clothing 
keep them safe, feed them soup.
And cookies.

Made a pact with myself one year ago today
with no clear vision or plan other than
the writing of a poem (of sorts) 
each day for forty-nine days.
Unlike so many other 
spoken and unspoken agendas
lost forgotten abandoned
I kept this one, extended it, upped the ante.
Now All Things seem possible.