Sacrificial Tree

Here are two poems about Christmas Trees. I’ve always been torn about having cut trees. I’ve reconciled my guilt by thanking the tree for giving me the soulful pleasure of its wonderful smell and living presence in my life.

I keep my trees as long as possible, usually until my birthday in mid January. This year I haven’t yet gotten a tree. I’ve just been too dissipated physically and emotionally, plus winter came on early, hard and strong. Who knows, maybe I’ll still get inspired.

Sacrificial Tree

Darkness descends upon afternoon’s glow
And pulls day’s light to down below.
As fickle air courts heavy chill
Feeble warmth flees up,
Conceding defeat
To weighty still.

I then illuminate the sacrificial tree
To lift the void which leadens me.
Her scintillating glitter
Enshrouds my fears
Enveloping my heart in glamorous sight.

This starry gift is infinitely old
yet ripe with richness
as time’s birth of soul.
Such sweet ritual!
Such mundane skill!
Giving root to such lofty thrill!

We need only open our hearts,
Our senses, our doubts, our souls to Her allure.
The myth of the season is born again.

Our Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree stands before me,
evergreen through the seasons,
glowing with light
through darkness and freezing.
My soul is warmed by its
shimmering spirit,
all crystal and glimmering,
giving life to love needed.

I’m able to hope
by such burning glory
for peace where there’s strife
and love for those, lonely.
My heart aches with sadness
that you can’t be here near me
but life must go on, then
for Beauty’s Eternity.

technorati tags- christmas tree poems, Christmas poems, solstice poems, Christmas tree

For what it’s worth, there are 15 tracks mixed here. 1 clarinetist improvising to repeated Robin calls, American Robin quarter speed, White Crowned Sparrow, Carolina Chickadee, Acorns dropping on my roof. Sooty Shearwater bird calls, Japanese Winter Wren, and Sage Thrasher at 64 and 128 slowed down speeds. Enjoy!

I haven’t posted here in a long, long time. Most of my attention is now devoted to writing for my professional clarinet blog, The Buzzing Reed. DavidHThomas.net

Sometimes I just want to write something non-clarinet or music oriented.

My parents are miraculously still alive. My mother is 88, and my father is 83.

Each is declining in their own special way, with moments of breakthroughs mixed with the general trend toward the end of their lives.

I also have a cat named Punker, who is 20 in September. I cannot imagine him going. He has been with me for almost half my life. I raised him as a pre-weened kitten, only one week old. His mother died of toxemia because she had another baby inside her which did not birth.

I had to bottle feed Punker with a special kitten milk. I also had to rub his tummy (to simulate the mother licking him) to stimulate his urine to go, and eventually, to encourage a bowel movement!!

I don’t want to write the whole story now, because it’s midnight, and I need to eat (dinner) and go to bed. But I’ll post more about Punker’s wonderful life in the next few weeks.

David Thomas (aka Garnet)