Powerful

The best of all possible
Evenings at home in those days,
The Christmas Eves of childhood.

You’re not nostalgic. You don’t
Want to go back to the tree
Decorating, the darkness

Outside, the precarious
Wishes of being a child.
That’s just the way that it was.

Those lights would be up next night
And several nights after that.
The dark outside wasn’t done,

The cold just getting started,
But the anticipation,
Later, would be exhausted.

Just one night had the power
To conjure the possible
As if it were magical,

Even knowing how it worked,
How parents made it happen.
One night, red glow, fresh tinsel.