Ralph Murre Verse-Virtual 2016 December

December 2016

I'm something of a jack-of-all-trades, at best, and attempt a few poems as any good jack should. To that end, I've published three slim volumes and have co-authored, with Sharon Auberle, a fourth. I'm honored to serve as the 2015-2017 poet laureate of Door County, Wisconsin, and I swear there really is such a thing and I didn't just make that up.

In Dark December

Whatever you believe,
whatever you do not,
there are sacred rites
you must perform
in dark December.
Do this for me:
Pull together
the kitchen table,
the folding table,
and that odd half-oval
usually covered
with bills and broken pencils
and red ink.
Pull together family and friends,
cool cats and stray dogs alike.
Turn off everything
except colored lights,
the roaster,
the toaster, the stove.
Cook. Bake. Eat.
Yes, even the fruitcake.
Eat, crowded around
those assembled tables
with mismatched chairs.
Reach so far
in your sharing
that you hold the sun
in one hand,
the stars in the other,
and no one between is hungry.
Now walk together,
talk together,
be together
on these darkest nights.
Give and forgive.
Light candles and ring bells.
Sing the old songs.
Tell the old stories
one more time,
leaving nothing out,
leaving no one out
in the long night,
leaving nothing wrong
that you can make right.

-first published in the Peninsula Pulse

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