(from the storehouse)

from the storehouse

shining slantwise...

year's first sun

--Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), Japanese poet and haiku master, written 1811, translated by David G. Lanoue

.土蔵からすじかいにさすはつ日哉
dozô kara sujikai ni sasu hatsu hi kana

Burning the Old Year

Letters swallow themselves in seconds. 
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

--Naomi Shihab Nye (1952- ), Palestinian-American St.  Louis-born poet, from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems, 1995.

[little tree]

little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid

look the spangle
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see 
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands 
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing 
"Noel Noel"

--e. e. cummings (1894-1963), American poet

Christmas at Sea

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seamen scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor'wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go about.

All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:
So's we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.

The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every 'long-shore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it's just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard's was the house where I was born.

O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.

They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
"All hands to loose topgallant sails," I heard the captain call.
"By the Lord, she'll never stand it," our first mate Jackson, cried. 
..."It's the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson," he replied.

She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.
As the winter's day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.

And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.

--Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), American novelist and poet 

The Mystic's Christmas

"All hail!" the bells of Christmas rang,
"All hail!" the monks at Christmas sang,
The merry monks who kept with cheer
The gladdest day of all their year.

But still apart, unmoved thereat,
A pious elder brother sat
Silent, in his accustomed place,
With God's sweet peace upon his face.

"Why sitt'st thou thus?" his brethren cried,
"It is the blessed Christmas-tide;
The Christmas lights are all aglow,
The sacred lilies bud and blow."

Above our heads the joy-bells ring,
Without the happy children sing,
And all God's creatures hail the morn
On which the holy Christ was born.

"Rejoice with us; no more rebuke
Our gladness with thy quiet look."
The gray monk answered, "Keep, I pray,
Even as ye list, the Lord's birthday. "

Let heathen Yule fires flicker red
Where thronged refectory feasts are spread;
With mystery-play and masque and mime
And wait-songs speed the holy time!

"The blindest faith may haply save; 
The Lord accepts the things we have; 
And reverence, howsoe'er it strays, 
May find at last the shining ways. 

"They needs must grope who cannot see, 
The blade before the ear must be; 
As ye are feeling I have felt, 
And where ye dwell I too have dwelt.

"But now, beyond the things of sense, 
Beyond occasions and events, 
I know, through God's exceeding grace, 
Release from form and time and space. 

"I listen, from no mortal tongue, 
To hear the song the angels sung; 
And wait within myself to know 
The Christmas lilies bud and blow. 

"The outward symbols disappear 
From him whose inward sight is clear; 
And small must be the choice of days 
To him who fills them all with praise! 

"Keep while you need it, brothers mine,
With honest seal your Christmas sign,
But judge not him who every morn
Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!"

--John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), American poet

Christmas Away from Home

Her sickness brought me to Connecticut.
Mornings I walk the dog: that part of life
is intact. Who's painted, who's insulated
or put siding on, who's burned the lawn
with lime—that's the news on Ardmore Street.

The leaves of the neighbor's respectable
rhododendrons curl under in the cold.
He has backed the car
through the white nimbus of its exhaust
and disappeared for the day.

In the hiatus between mayors
the city has left leaves in the gutters,
and passing cars lift them in maelstroms.

We pass the house two doors down, the one
with the wildest lights in the neighborhood,
an establishment without irony.
All summer their putto empties a water jar,
their St. Francis feeds the birds.
Now it's angels, festoons, waist-high
candles, and swans pulling sleighs.

Two hundred miles north I'd let the dog
run among birches and the black shade of pines.
I miss the hills, the woods and stony
streams, where the swish of jacket sleeves
against my sides seems loud, and a crow
caws sleepily at dawn.

By now the streams must run under a skin
of ice, white air-bubbles passing erratically,
like blood cells through a vein. Soon the mail,
forwarded, will begin to reach me here.

--Jane Kenyon (1947-1995), American poet and translator, from Collected Poems (2005)

A Hymn for Christmas Day

The Shepherds watch their flocks by night,
Beneath the moon's unclouded light,
All around is calm and still,
Save the murm'ring of the rill:
When lo! a form of light appears,
And on the awe-struck Shepherds' ears
Are words, of peace and comfort flowing
From lips with love celestial glowing.
Spiritual forms are breaking
Through the gloom, their voices taking
Part in the adoring song
Of the bright angelic throng.
Wondering the Shepherds bend
Their steps to Bethlehem, and wend
To a poor and crowded inn:--
Tremblingly their way they win
To the stable, where they find
The Redeemer of mankind,
Just born into this world of danger,
Lying in an humble manger.
And they spread abroad each word
Which that joyful night they'd heard,
And they glorified the name
Of their gracious God, Who came
Himself to save from endless woe
The offspring of this world below.

--Christina Rosetti (1830-1894), English Romantic poet and devout Anglican.  

The Parting Glass

Oh all the money that e'er I spent
I spent it in good company
And all the harm that e'er I've done
Alas, it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all

Oh all the comrades that e'er I've had
Are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I've had
Would wish me one more day to stay
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and I'll softly call
Good night and joy be with you all
Good night and joy be with you all.

--Traditional song, sung at the wake of Jody Naifeh on December 21, 2019.

Great Spirit Prayer

Oh, Great Spirit, 
Whose voice I hear in the winds 
and whose breath gives life to all the world. 
Hear me! I need your strength and wisdom. 
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes 
ever hold the red and purple sunset. 
Make my hands respect the things you have made 
and my ears sharp to hear your voice. 
Make me wise so that I may understand 
the things you have taught my people. 
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden 
in every leaf and rock. 

Help me remain calm and strong in the 
face of all that comes towards me. 
Help me find compassion without 
empathy overwhelming me. 
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, 
but to fight my greatest enemy: myself. 
Make me always ready to come to you 
with clean hands and straight eyes. 
So when life fades, as the fading sunset, 
my spirit may come to you without shame. 

- Lakota, translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887

Sonnet 97

How like a winter hath my absence been 
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! 
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! 
What old December's bareness everywhere! 
And yet this time remov'd was summer's time, 
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, 
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime, 
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease: 
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me 
But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit; 
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, 
And thou away, the very birds are mute; 
Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer 
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

--William Shakespeare, (1564-1616), English actor, playwright, and poet