My mother writing Christmas cards, late into the night. The darkest time. The greatest light.
December 6, 2019
A Thimbleful of Ash
If you don’t eat your supper,
Santa won’t visit us tonight.
All the cookies will go to waste,
the cards, the toys, the bows.
A fire in the fireplace.
The front door left unlocked.
Somehow, Santa knows.
On the porch, a stack of wood.
Long lives, a thimbleful of ash.
With groggy eyes,
Santa’s looking at his map.
It’s foggy in the San Joaquin.
We’re getting nowhere fast.
On, Donner! On, Blitzen!
On, Stella and Maureen!
I don’t like macaroni.
Why not? You used to.
It squeaks. It squishes.
It isn’t green.
Can I have a cookie now?
No, those are for Santa.
Is Santa fat? Yes. He’s roly-poly.
Can I be roly-poly too?
Not without your macaroni.
Catch-22!
The vineyards are asleep.
The neighbors have gone to bed.
In the far distance, a baby cries.
I still remember what he said:
Long lives, a thimbleful of ash.
Songs and Letters, December 24, 2005
Winter Poems, Cosmopsis Books, 2007
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Categories: New Poems & Pieces, Songs and Letters, Winter Poems
Tags: Ash, Childhood, Christmas, Diaries, Journals, Memory, My Father, My Mother, Our Old Farm, Poems, Poetry, The San Joaquin Valley, Winter Poems
William Michaelian 