Morning Poem

 Ornamental Memories

 

The lights in the Christmas tree

give my spirit joy.

The ornaments bring back memories

of places I’ve been, of people I’ve known.

Forty years of memories, maybe more.

 

I delve back into childhood memories.

What do I remember about the ornaments?

 

We made ornaments from walnuts,

painted red or green and with glitter on them.

We had taken out the nut part

and glued them with a rubber band

sandwiched between the two halves to hang them.

 

Fancy glass ornaments,

that would often get broken.

The lights were sturdy light bulbs,

not dainty, like the ones we have now.

 

Hard plastic icicles that glowed in the dark.

Silver paper icicles, we threw on in batches.

Construction paper chains.

Popsicle-stick Stars of David.

 

And the farm set sat under the tree.

A red metal barn, yellow plastic people and animals.

We didn’t have a regular tree stand.

We propped the tree up by string nailed to the walls.

 

We got the tree off our property.

It always looked little

until we brought it into the house.

 

Mom always said, “It’s the best tree ever!”

To this day, we still say it, in her memory.