282 and 283; and 314: The Seven Days of December: i

To love you when it would have been a feat

would not have been a feat for me. Indeed,

I would have loved to take a solemn seat

beside you any time you grew a weed.

I’d notice all the beauty of that weed—

the colors, not the thorns the thistle grows.

And, with some time and botany, the seed

would quickly grow into a kindly rose.

But even should it not, I would not care—

no thorn of yours could prick me very much.

For all the velvet petals that they share

would heal each wound your wicked points might touch.

Alas, to know it cannot be. You are

away, raising your roses from afar.

~~~

A note I wrote when I was just a child

is something of a question for the man.

Did I write that? Should that note be compiled

with things more current, after such a span?

But no-one else did. Who will claim that boy?

Who owns the things he said with his whole heart?

He meant them, even if they don’t employ

the wisdom which some age has deigned impart.

So they are mine. And I shall care for them,

the way you would a youth who is uncouth.

Our household creatures we do not condemn,

nor so the creature that I was in youth.

And I will teach him what no-one else would,

and we’ll compose the notes he never could.

~~~

It snowed the day before December came.

I’ve never seen it get so white so fast.

But who am I to point the hand of blame

when little prayers are clearly getting passed?

I was a boy too, once, and longed for this;

but where I was, the snow was very rare.

I will not ask their faith to go amiss,

despite my own that clearly went nowhere.

Alas, that I do not have what it takes

to also pray, like these, for sweet snowfall.

These are not what I would call sweet snowflakes,

but clearly others make most of it all.

For I can hear, already, snowy play

on these, the heels of December’s first day.