Christmas Away From Home Poem by Jane Kenyon

Christmas Away From Home

Rating: 4.5


Her sickness brought me to Connecticut.
Mornings I walk the dog: that part of life
is intact. Who's painted, who's insulated
or put siding on, who's burned the lawn
with lime—that's the news on Ardmore Street.


The leaves of the neighbor's respectable
rhododendrons curl under in the cold.
He has backed the car
through the white nimbus of its exhaust
and disappeared for the day.


In the hiatus between mayors
the city has left leaves in the gutters,
and passing cars lift them in maelstroms.


We pass the house two doors down, the one
with the wildest lights in the neighborhood,
an establishment without irony.
All summer their putto empties a water jar,
their St. Francis feeds the birds.
Now it's angels, festoons, waist-high
candles, and swans pulling sleighs.


Two hundred miles north I'd let the dog
run among birches and the black shade of pines.
I miss the hills, the woods and stony
streams, where the swish of jacket sleeves
against my sides seems loud, and a crow
caws sleepily at dawn.


By now the streams must run under a skin
of ice, white air-bubbles passing erratically,
like blood cells through a vein. Soon the mail,
forwarded, will begin to reach me here.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Fabrizio Frosini 15 December 2015

''Now it's angels, festoons, waist-high candles, and swans pulling sleighs.'' Strange.. this passage makes me remember a Christmas in Zimbabwe, more than 30 years ago.. Festoons like those ones, downtown Harare.. but not a single snowflake.. just warm, beutiful sunny days.. :)

9 0 Reply
Fabrizio Frosini 15 December 2015

By now the streams must run under a skin of ice, white air-bubbles passing erratically, like blood cells through a vein. Soon the mail, forwarded, will begin to reach me here. - ITALIAN: Ormai i ruscelli devono correre sotto uno strato di ghiaccio, bianche bolle d'aria transitano erratiche, come cellule sanguigne in una vena. Presto la posta, inoltrata, inizierà a raggiungermi qui.

8 0 Reply
Gangadharan Nair Pulingat 17 December 2014

Christmas poems have messages of great ideas for love and compassion. I like this poem too.

2 0 Reply
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