Like Tinsel Strung around the World

Like tinsel strung around the world,

Spiraling from needled branch to star,

We glitter with transparent light

That transports us beyond horizons far.

Along these lines, we lift our sight

Across the oceans wide and mountains tall.

We’re sewn together, somehow, in the squall.

It’s not the same as what the past has brought,

But it’s enough

To weather what this waning year has wrought.

 

 

This year may bring many of us a different kind of Christmas - perhaps a bit more isolated, a bit less filled with the presence of family and friends. For me, I am spending it in Nairobi, Kenya, and so am far from the family I usually see around this time. But I am fortunate to be able to see them over the computer, which helps me to remember that we remain connected despite the distance.

Stretching toward the Rain

Someday when the rains

Come,

We’ll find new food again.

But until then,

We’ll wait

And stretch what quantity remains,

Some

Each day to put upon a plate.

This is a final poem inspired by my time in northern Ghana. Part of the work we're doing there involves identifying poor and vulnerable members of communities, who are most in need of assistance to build durable toilets. In this context, one of the indicators of poverty is that a household is not able to feed itself throughout the entire year. Sometimes, people who fall into this category are referred to as "June/July people", because those months occur around the end of the dry season, when the harvest from the previous rainy season may run out. In this poem, I experimented a bit with very short lines (sometimes with only one syllable). One reason for this is that I think it aligns with the poem's theme of stretching what you have for as long as you can. A second reason is that I think the short lines help to add emphasis. For example, the second line increases the importance of the word "come", suggesting that the narrator is imploring, begging the rain to arrive soon. Similarly, in the seventh line, I think that emphasizing "some" implies a certain cautiousness - the need to be very careful about how much is consumed each day.

Waking to a Sliver of the Moon

Rise today to greet the morn before the dawn

When skies are dark and stars are bright and streets are still,

As the city sleeps, still hot without the sun,

While memories of dreams before deflect the quill

Which writes of present day.

Like a freshly filed fingernail, austere,

A sliver of the moon appears without a flaw.

Almost all in shadow, lunar light shines clear.

What little of this world I’ve known, I stand in awe,

And so I hope to stay.

 

 

This was another poem I wrote while in Ghana. Actually, this one came about very early in the trip. The morning after I arrived in Accra, the capital city, I needed to wake up very early for another flight to the northern part of the country, where we were working. As I was going to the airport, I saw a very thin crescent moon in the sky - very close to a new moon, but a small sliver of the surface was still shown in light. I wrote this poem during that morning's short flight.

Autumn's Lullabies

Dark eyes press against the glass.

What do they see in the moonlight,

In the silver stars that touch the grass?

The shadows of September loom,

When the hours of night the day surpass,

A prelude to October’s country

Where spirits gather beyond their doom

And dance their macabre scene.

Mountains rise, black-green

Against the backdrop of the night,

A phosphorescent glow beneath the moonlight,

But all the frights

Of devil, demon, wraith, and wight

Diminish before the morning

As stars, like angels, cast their lights

And break the latent bonds between

The visions and the eyes.

Chaos dissolves in falling leaves

Of laughter and autumn’s lullabies,

And the little one who grieves

In early, long November sleeves

Knows, soon enough, true life again will rise.

 

 

This poem comes a bit late in the year, given the months it mentions. It was loosely inspired by October Country, Ray Bradbury's collection of horror/fantasy short stories, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, his horror/fantasy novel. Personally, I find Ray Bradbury's writing to be very poetic and evocative. Although his short stories don't always end hopefully, the novel does, and so this poem does as well.