I drape the mantle and dress the newel post
for December with hemlock. The white pine
yellowed with summer’s drought or my neglect.
I never planted heather as planned, and
won’t buy it from Kroger’s flower counter
by some rule of thrift I don’t remember.
“Best” or “festive” comes as long stretch in a
season of lost jobs and hard credit, and
cries to repair cities fest’ring in ruin
and family farms withering. I deck
only a hall, not myself, with garland —
requiem to diminished or dimmed hopes.
Yet lingers that larger dream, long command,
grand stage — to mend, by flow of tide and tidings,
wounds of justice undone, bondage hard-spent,
griefs long-borne; to spill mirth and pour mercy,
bedeck winter-scape in garish garland
of morn, when God spades and works and wakens
buried ash, and tends cosmic fields seeded
in right and grace, to which I too that dawn shall be
awakened and garlanded with the rest.
WILLIAM R. LEETY is pastor of Overbrook Church in Columbus, Ohio.
