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ADVENT
this
poem received the New Voice Award from
The Writer's Voice at the 63rd Street Y in NYC
The
common darkness of hollow poles,
coarse boards tilted up, this
is what scaffolding is, the rough hand saying Stop,
walk on the other side
for the rest of your life.
When
my daughter was growing up, I should have
stood still on the sidewalk and looked at her,
when we still had good light. Now, the dim store
on the corner is going to be rubble. Strips of
ceiling
hang
like skin ripped off an animal on the run.
The cheap embarrassment I always feel
staring at torn-open buildings
is going to be worse this time,
a
door standing alone in its frame three stories up
will call out to me, make me think
of all the temporary doors we opened
year after year in Advent,
how
my daughter and I
made a beautiful tenement, bending back
one spangled cardboard shutter a day.
They're
hammering boards over all the windows now,
wood that raw blond color you'd never want
your hair to be, the color some hair turns
when you are young and don't have good advice.
Anyone
who's seen the way a building goes when it's ready
will stay away and let it happen,
they'll tear into it
like it was a dollhouse
belonging to their kid sister
who is too old to think she has her own life
concealed inside each careful room.
It's
almost Christmas Eve, we should be
bending back the last cardboard door,
somebody should be, and sitting back, There now,
some
mother with her daughter,
as if something could happen now,
a way opening, clear
as the sudden light
that
falls on the young girl's hair,
little granules of brilliance,
incorruptible.
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n.b. Advent calendars, made of
double layers of colorfully illustrated cardboard,
are a part of many children's celebration of the
Christmas holiday. The calendars have 24 small
doors, each opening to reveal a miniature scene. One
door is opened each day in Advent--the season
preceding Christmas in the church
calendar--culminating with the opening of the final
door on Christmas Eve.
Susan
Varon is founder and facilitator of the Survivors
Writing Group for women. |