Christmases Past (#2 in a series from the Blue Bar)

Like a child, right now, I just want to go home for the holidays,

Back through the fog of time to warm Southern charm,

Everyone visiting everyone with dish in hand,

Warm breezes blowing through open French doors

    while we drink spiced tea swirling with the smells of the holidays:

        cinnamon and spice and everything nice

To go with the soft drawl of good conversation

       with people I’ve known all my life.

I want to remember Christmases wrapped in

      warmth and everything familiar:

A handmade wreath on the door,

Cut glass bowls on the dining room table

       filled with camellia blooms.

“Come help cut flowers,”

Scissors in my mother’s gloved hands,

Bundles of red, pink and white fresh from the yard.

I was too young to know then,

That family and friends ease into the distant past.

Even the memories are stale,

Taking on the hue of sepia-toned antiques,

Mounted in gold leaf frames

Collecting dust.

So it’s time for me to get a Brass Monkey from the bar

And find a table so I can listen to youth and vigor

Spilling over with uninhibited enthusiasm.

Someone whose time is now,

And whose pictures are not yet faded.