Flashback Christmas 2022, Waiting for Christmas
I got an acceptance in early December from a journal that posts on Facebook called Ancient Paths. I was slated for Christmas Eve, The small prose poem has to do with waiting not just for the arrival or birth of Jesus but about waiting for the arrival home of loved ones. I composed the poem when Grace was in college (or perhaps off somewhere). The sudden appearance of youth, of someone who left lights on, stayed up most of the night, who ate at unregulated hours--a whole shambles to my routine and schedule, my house rules, whatever--and then gone, the place empty of life and now sad.
"Waiting for Christmas"
by Jane Hertenstein
At Christmas every light comes on,
in the basement where my daughter
in the dining room a lamp illuminates
the abandoned puzzle, the laundry nook
dazzles, while the back porch radiates a
smoky incandescence, the TV flickers
a blue twilight, in the middle of the night
my heart pulses as I reflect. Soon
the house will be silent, the only light
the bulb above my reading chair.
Comments