the air biting, crisp.
The 11-passenger van puffed and waited,
as if it, too, were ready for a family gathering.
Tiny girls boarded in haste;
boys waited with pink noses under scarves,
and my stomach turned over violently
as I looked into my older brother’s clear, blue eyes:
“It doesn’t feel like
Christmas Eve…”
Six words would recurringly haunt the decked halls of my brain.
While each year, twinkling lights still warm my heart,
I knew at ten what most adults still doubt:
Joy’s flowing robes harbor looming Sadness,
its claw
ever-reaching, growing with us.
This poem reflects the concept of siblings affecting your outlook on life. I still remember this incident when my brother had finally reached the age at which one starts feeling the stress of Christmas rather than only the calm joy. Since he pointed it out, I've noticed it, too. I've always wondered - would I have come to that conclusion (that it didn't *feel* like Christmas Eve even though it was) on my own eventually? Personally, I feel that it was more important for me to share in the burden of my brother's nostalgic sorrow so that he didn't have to carry it alone. That's a strong benefit of having siblings - you don't have to carry burdens on your own.
ReplyDelete*This free-verse poetry was not written for this class, but for a writing for publication class that I had a year ago. However, I felt that it was fitting for this project, so I included it here.*
ReplyDeleteInspiration credit needs to go to Charles Dickens. If you notice, the title reads "Christmas Present," and many would read that to mean "Christmas Gift," but, while it does include that interpretation in its double-meaning, the primary reading is "Christmas Present" as in "The Ghost of." *A Christmas Carol* is my all-time favorite book, and I chose to allude to it here in the title and the last stanza. If you've read the book or seen a good film adaptation, you'll remember that the Ghost of Christmas Present is a large, jolly fellow dressed in ornate robes (hence "Joy's flowing robes"). As you read the rest of Christmas Present's stave, though, you find that he harbors the wretched creatures "Ignorance" and "Want" underneath his robes. One has a nasty "claw" that Scrooge notices out of the corner of his eye. Here, I reflect on Dickens' idea that jolly times often veil the constant sorrow in this world, which is manmade.
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