Ode to Christmas

So, I have been in bed for the past three days with the flu. Not a great time by any standards. By day three I started to think I was getting better, so I did what any normal person would do, I cleaned out my desk drawer. I found missing bills, Get Well cards I never mailed and oddly enough a poem I had written back when I was living in New York City in 1998. I have no idea what its true meaning is, but if you do, have a stab at it and let me know.

 December 25, 1998

I awoke from a dream, quickly
there was a sharp pain, suddenly
No, not of despair or loneliness
far greater, that of remembrance

Life is full of sweetness
and sorrow is the bitterness
Time is the essence of all things
which things must pass and go

Once, as a child I wandered
away from my mother’s small hand
I looked back to not find her
She’d disappeared into the wind

I travelled alone thereafter
in the vast lands of many hills
Clambering up and down the protruding
stones that seem to hinder the path

Lost in space, time, whatever
Searching for that vanished hand
Glorified by all the wonders
Of the majestic and beautiful land

Then, like a flower in early spring
comes rising up through the soil
Painted white with five small petals
lives an image of believing

Reaching up through the sky
on wondrous waves of light
There lives a stem of beauty
and in this world, is all matter

Now knowing the reason of doubt
and forgiveness sets in
Like my mother’s hand dropping
in the wisps of the wind.