Ordinary Time

The following was originally published in Ever Eden Literary Journal Winter 2020.

The air is ripe with Christmas trees, dried out,
needling the sidewalk and careless passersby.
To see, you’d think a forest had been felled
on Ross, a glade of evergreens; the woods
of Dunsinane are come to Dallas just
to die.  But no.  Their spirit lingers on
polluted air; the ghost of Christmas, smell
of Douglas firs is everywhere.  You can’t
escape the thoughts of childhood that come tripping
in—the wolf beneath the tree, the bike,
the longed for set of Legos or the doll.
Thrown out upon the sidewalk all our lives
are there, and we pass by, never saying
we too sense the invisible scent or care
to see our memory composted with
the desiccated Douglas firs of Christmas.