In Clara's House

In Clara’s House

In your house

Christmas was always kept

my grandfather getting the tree

from the VA lot, cheap and scrawny,

you and I making it fit to be seen

before the sisters and the cousins came

to eat.

In your house

a discard was an ornament

something broken could be fixed

and used again

something ugly could be cleaned

and put in a place of pride

unique.

In your house

African violets ruled in fertile hosts,

as big as geraniums, green guards with mauve caps

or cobalt, protecting every table, every window,

grown from microleaves I watched you cut and

place on soil like rows of crops from the farm 

you couldn’t have.

In your house

you set the table

carved and heavy, massive made,

covered with lace where all the family came 

for groaning meals, where on off days

a child could hide between the legs

and be a lion.

In your house

a child with one mother lost

could have another found, 

in tales and talk, in times

smelling of coffee cardamom

and soap, mother hands brushing princess hair,

braiding it into dragontails.

In your house,

Christmas was always kept.

The tree star watched while we sang

and the casual blows and formal fear,

the hidden anger and secret prisons

of that other house

were nothing for awhile.

December 2010

Clara & Ragnar with african violet, 195?

This poem was originally posted last year at the inimitable One Stop Poetry, reposted for dVerse Poets Pub 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays in all shapes and forms to my friends, fellow poets and all reading this.

Header Photo of Clara Mathilda Carlson taken by Robert Studio, Chicago, Ill, 195?