Christmas--It's Worth It

Christmas

"It really is a chore.
Cleaning off the mantle—
stripping the coffee table, making room on the book shelves,
and the dining room table.
Putting away all those more-than- you-need treasures.
This is not the worst.
It’s hauling old dusty boxes out of the attic.
It’s cluttering up the living room with beads
and trinkets and lights that do not burn and candles
that should have been thrown away years ago.

But here and there amid the boxes
you stop and find an ornament that takes you back.
You hold a child’s crude decoration and laugh.
You walk down memory lane
and meet loved ones of long ago.
Yesterday’s music comes back slow and then strong
and sure.

And when the almost empty boxes are out of sight—
The left-over tissue thrown away—
You look around at the mantle, the tree—the table—
And you know once again why you do it all.
Over and over—season after season—year after year."

--Roger Lovette