tuscan fire

Christmas is a place, like Jackson Hole,
where all agree
to meet once a year.  It has water,
and grass for horses;
All the fur traders can come in.
We visited the place as children,
but we never heard the good stories.

Those stories only get told in the big tents,
late at night, when a trapper who has been caught
In his own trap, held down by icy water, talks;
and a man with a ponytail and a limp
comes in from the edge of the fire.

As children we knew there was more to it –
Why some men got drunk on Christmas Eve
wasn’t explained, nor why we were so often near tears
nor why the stars came down so close,
why so much was lost.  Those men and women
Who had died in wars started by others,
did they come that night?  Is that why
the Christmas tree trembled
just before we opened the presents?

There was something about angels.
Angels we have Heard on High
Sweetly singing o’er the Plain.
The angels were certain.
Be we could not be certain
whether our family was worthy tonight.

–  Robert Bly
     from “Morning Poems”