December 2015
Joyce S. Brown
jsbrown1939@gmail.com
jsbrown1939@gmail.com
I’m a retired English teacher (high school and college) with 53 years of marriage, two children, four grandchildren, one dog. I’ve had poems in Poetry, The American Scholar, The Tennessee Review, Yankee, and others!
Christmas used to be
a simpler thing. King's College
Choir now sing old carols
with elaborate harmonies,
different descants every verse,
with tenors and sopranos in reverse.
Lights have jumped from windows
to entire yards. They cover
every branch of every front yard
tree, lie on bushes, blinking
nervously. Lighted icicles
drip from gutters and remain
in place all year. Blow-up snowmen
and Santas in their sleighs—
too much for ear and eye, things
a baby would be overwhelmed by.
Ruxton Road
A heavy shovel
lifts hunks of asphalt
in steel teeth,
drops them in the gut
of a truck. Two men
manage traffic,
turning signs on poles:
The southbound line
of cars waits
in front of STOP
while north goes
forward slowly.
Forget reflecting
on the meaning
of Christmas,
the Golden Rule,
The Twelve Steps,
the Leap of Faith,
the unexamined life—
these pole-holders,
unwitting philosophers
of a new age, show us
what we need to know:
alternating messages
of STOP and SLOW
Fifties Christmas
The mailman brought us cards
three times a day. Wise men
on camels, Santa smiling
from his sleigh, trees with lights
and ornaments, snowmen
wearing wooly hats, wreaths,
poinsettias, snowy steeples.
Not one a family photograph,
not one baby except Mary’s.
Messages, white doves of peace
and joy and love. We believed
the angel who said “Fear not.”
a simpler thing. King's College
Choir now sing old carols
with elaborate harmonies,
different descants every verse,
with tenors and sopranos in reverse.
Lights have jumped from windows
to entire yards. They cover
every branch of every front yard
tree, lie on bushes, blinking
nervously. Lighted icicles
drip from gutters and remain
in place all year. Blow-up snowmen
and Santas in their sleighs—
too much for ear and eye, things
a baby would be overwhelmed by.
Ruxton Road
A heavy shovel
lifts hunks of asphalt
in steel teeth,
drops them in the gut
of a truck. Two men
manage traffic,
turning signs on poles:
The southbound line
of cars waits
in front of STOP
while north goes
forward slowly.
Forget reflecting
on the meaning
of Christmas,
the Golden Rule,
The Twelve Steps,
the Leap of Faith,
the unexamined life—
these pole-holders,
unwitting philosophers
of a new age, show us
what we need to know:
alternating messages
of STOP and SLOW
Fifties Christmas
The mailman brought us cards
three times a day. Wise men
on camels, Santa smiling
from his sleigh, trees with lights
and ornaments, snowmen
wearing wooly hats, wreaths,
poinsettias, snowy steeples.
Not one a family photograph,
not one baby except Mary’s.
Messages, white doves of peace
and joy and love. We believed
the angel who said “Fear not.”
©2015 Joyce. S. Brown
©2015 Joyce. S. Brown