here….angels in alabama
and if I’m lucky my grandchildren will know
about this day the same way dad tells me his
Christmas memories….
the cedar tree with the fat outside lights
and his brother who planted it and hastened himself
home….I hone in on all of that and drink it up crisply…
not MY memory, but mine alone to preserve ~
because they deserve that…
so, I collect them you know?…in all of their guises:
old santa’s, and lapel pins grandmothers wore,
and bubble lights reflecting the soft mica’d glow
this reflection in me is of Christmases past…
and I hope to make that reflection last…
in my snow angel.
Now, I'll tell you the story behind that poem. My granny Kate was one of the first people in Georgiana, AL (and to hear Daddy tell it Central Alabama) to have Christmas lights OUTSIDE! She was a Renaissance woman and maybe the third year or so they had electricity at Mockingbird Hill, Kate got out the Sears and Roebuck and ordered her some big, fat, outside Christmas lights for the Cedar tree planted near the road. The whole community came by to ogle them! The Cedar tree's not there anymore and when I asked Daddy to plant me one, he said "No!" Apparently JC (John Chester one of Daddy's older brothers) was the one who planted that tree and when it got big enough to shade his grave, well that's when he got appendicitis and died. Poppy says if you plant a Cedar when it gets big enough to shade your grave, you die.
