Christmas Day 2010

The wind rattles our windows
reminding us there is a world
out there, beyond the warmth
and consolation of our family homes.
And if I walked the block or two,
cutting through Beacon Hill Park
down past the giant totem
and up to the slanting, crumbling verge
of the rumpled, thrashing gray...
if I looked out that way toward
the distant weld of sea and sky,
I would find the full force of this storm
which strips trees naked
and admits no light from beyond
my vague notion of a horizon.
It would be me, alone, with my creaking dog
who knows perhaps a little less than I,
and is a little less prone to prognostications.

It's times like these I think of Christ
and Buddha, and Allah, and Einstein,
and all those who have come and gone before.
It's times like this I realize
the mighty wind may knock things down,
uproot them, tear them away from clinging arms,
but really it passes through me and around me
with a shiver and sigh that bespeaks
an eternity not my own.