Christmas 2005: A Poem

When the night seems longer than usual
this winter, and I find my wakefulness more
inviting than submission and dreaming,
I look first to find your head in the dark
lying next to me. I don't always see you
through the fog of lightlessness, then

ever so slowly you emerge amidst the
sheets and comforter now bundled around
your body

you become you and so much more

as my eyes adjust to see you in all
your life.

I don't hear your breathing and I wonder
what you would say if you suddenly awoke
to my viewing.

Would you feel alarmed or calmed by
the attention?

From the bed and bedroom I will sometimes
wander to the living room, where the orchids
and Christmas tree, all darkened by hours of
distilled quiet now beckon me inward,

I'm often invited to sit there on that camel
love seat of yours, by you, I can only think,
and, as the minutes pass, the dawn breaks
the horizon through the southeast windows
growing crimson and yellow and azure and
lime green even.

I thought I knew you in all your life,
but of course, I only know you in your current
streaming life, entering during that concentrated
March of a month while you were content to
wait it out.

Now orange lights enough to shadow the frames
containing the photographs of family and loved ones
and Christmas with you in this Sea View vista
fills me with the sacred and profain, and now

I want to take you from your sleep to a spot
under the Christmas tree and make you giddy
with pleasure and joy,

let you take me too, as I know you will want to do.

As the reds and scarlets and orange and yellows pour
into the room, drenching the Christmas tree and photos,
I hear the opening of the bedroom door,

You emerge into this light like an omen,
a cosmological messenger forecasting

sweetness above

firmness below

loveliness ahead.