sunday scribblings: holiday memories

I realized last night that I need to start writing poetically and/or fictionally about where I’m at right now with the house and other things before I can go on to any other stories.

I’m not sure if I’m at all happy with this particular poem, but I’m glad I tried for it. Maybe I’ll come back in a few days and edit.

***

in a stack of boxes in the back of a closet
is one marked “XMAS” in black sharpie
in his clear & tidy printing

in the attic of my mother’s house
is a box 3 feet square, at least

this one is smaller
small enough to pick up
light enough to carry easily

no glass balls in this box
we’ve never had a tree big enough
to need them

but in a silver box from the Gap
that must’ve held a gift once
4 matched clear glass ornaments
from a friend, from the year
that I stuffed a full-size tree
into a studio apartment

and from that same year
a similar number of starched lace snowflakes
and a single impossibly tiny
origami swan in pink paper

plus two brass ornaments
from my childhood
engraved with my name and the year
1977, 1978

the rest of the box
is unopened lights
a handmade plaid treeskirt
3 dreidels
too much needlework
from my mother

also an amazing quilted table runner
in luscious greens and reds
gold and silver both
also from my mother

a stocking from my aunt
in the shape of a Victorian boot
pink and green, my name in looping white
it looks lonely pinned to the wall
with a pushpin
over the table where the presents are stacked

I keep forgetting to go looking
for a stocking for him, something
special that can go back into the box
come January