Poem 7

It's been at least a week since we had a city-crippling few inches of snow here in King County, so I feel justified in posting this poem and not motivated by nostalgia brought on by weather. I promise it will be the only Christmas poem (to be fair I never use that word) that I post this year.
I've got the bad feeling that Thomas Kincaid, painter of light that he is, would somehow approve of this one.

To see green yellow red blue
lights on the snow,
I might walk through calf-deep struggle
on the sides of the streets
and hear the shuffle of tires
in snow, the lines they draw.
You could string light
around trees in spirals-
ponderosa bark clinging to wire-
or tack it within windows,
the nimbus of color against blinds
curtains, drapes, black glass,
or framing a living room:
the adoration of chairs
over a coffee table manger.
I am here now, my collar up
the ladder creaking against the eaves
cramming light into tiny packets,
portioned out so that it is
strings of waiting.
Each staple marks a day spent
in months without a twenty-fifth.
But we could find waiting tonight
with the wind,
with the sound-hungry snow,
with the lights,
and the sky pink
with a city’s patience.