marketa transforms our little home

into a festival of light

shiny red globes hang on branches she painted white

placed in a blue and white chinese vase on the hearth

red blue green lights

entwine a garland of green pine needles on the mantle

tiny white lights define a window frame

so pretty now that the panes are black with night

it's christmas time

red green white stockings 

hang by the chimney (hung with care)

our names lovingly knitted into the pattern by marcy

along with a

reindeer

christmas tree

santa claus

it makes me happy to see our home so cheery

my little menorah put away for the year

its festival of light having passed

the wax drips cleaned up

marketa in her soft chair

reading 

legs curled beneath her   

me typing away   

a book of sakatarō hagiwara poems at hand

the furnace warming us

the sounds of massimo faraò jazz trio keeping time

i've been thinking about terri lately

she was lovely

i'm sure she still is

making someone very happy

that word   marketa

once so foreign    

now   

three notes in a beautiful chord

marketa

so far from home

making a home

for herself

for me 

for us

it's beginning to feel a lot like christmas

thoughts of terri

have shifted to marcy

to colin and his grandfather

to antoinette and nathaniel

to others far away 

to one not so far away

to friends gone too soon

~

all that is missing is snow

`