December 13, 2021

Christmas

Christmas has been sneaking in around the edges

in this our two thousand twenty first year of grace

it didn't need to and it shouldn't have had to

but it did, and it has been, but it's still mostly unseen

it's not because they've been trying to keep it out

it's more because they've not been welcoming it in

to be sure, the Advent candles and wreath were put up

along with the weekly families with their artistic words

words prepared for them from another's hand

words which consequently felt odd and fell false

but the carols have been absent, the messages bare

like a Christmas tree at the side of a January road

and I am sad, for I long to sing "Joy to the World!"