Good News
Did you know that Christmas is
Did you know that Christmas is
Love, Love, Love, only Love to
be given, shared and cherished?
When baking together, hands
covered in flour, your fingertips
sweetened with chopped figs,
or roughened from wrapping
hundreds of tamales for family
dinner, while the honeyed voice
of Nat King Cole asks you to have
yourselves a merry, little Christmas.
Love means sharing a laugh
at the antics of the dog that runs
in circles on the lawn, so happy
to be free - without leash, without
orders to sit, roll, obey the master.
Love is a quiet moment of writing
the sweetest of wishes to be mailed
far, far away – this year even further.
Love is a letter filled affection, kind
feelings, gentle words that glisten
with happiness & warmth.
(c) Maja Trochimczyk 2018
A Music Box Christmas
I wind the spring on the music box
Silvery specks swirl in the snow globe
The twinkling of “We wish you a Merry Christmas” fills the air
Santa on the rooftop falls into the chimney.
Are you ready for the holidays?
With Scottish whisky cake
Polish makowiec, American apple pie? Will you cook
Tamales on Christmas Eve, your family gathered
Around steaming pots, laughter mixed with hearty flavors?
Will you roast turkey with fixings on Christmas Day?
Will you nibble slices of chocolate oranges, after unwrapping gifts,
Will you taste walnuts and sesame snaps from your stockings?
I wind the spring on the music box
Silvery specks swirl in the snow globe
Memories of home swirl before me
I make cranberry sauce with pears and apples
The way my Mom taught me. Do I still know
How to chop figs and dates into finely ground poppy seeds
Boiled in milk, re-fried with honey? The favorite flavors of childhood,
Float away with Ogiński’s polonaise, Farewell to the Homeland.
Under blazing sun of California, I still taste the exotic desserts
Of Poland’s eastern borderlands, where cultures mixed
And worlds mingled – Poles, Lithuanians, Tartars, Jews –
Cornflower blue skies, shimmering gold of rye fields.
I wind the spring on the music box
Silvery specks swirl in the snow globe
I make a promise to myself I will not break
This Christmas, I’ll read a novel, wrapped in a plush red blanket
And a Santa hat. I will walk alone in the park, come back
To the empty house and watch The
Lord of the Rings,
The epic battles of the elements, good versus evil,
Good versus evil - twirling and waltzing
- the silvery specks
Dance in the snow globe. I sing along “We wish you
A Merry Christmas” thinking of
the Christmas play
My daughter an Angel waving a green pine bough
Singing, in a sweet chorus of children’s voices:
“We swish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”
© 2015 by Maja Trochimczyk
