Saturday, December 23, 2006






Magic

It's in the snowflake skies of children's wishes.
It's in the music of children's laughter.
It's in the breathlessness of children's anticipation.
It's in the faith of children's embraces.

The magic of Christmas is here...
In the childlike wonder of us all.


Splendor

Ebony eve, silvered streets.
Lavender mist and icicle tears.
Visions of velvet, crimson and jade.
Golden glints in topaz thoughts.
Color it Christmas. Give it with love.



Someday

Perhaps it begins long before the first frost -
Somewhere between memory and reality.
It touches us with compassion
and whispers to us of hope.
It tiptoes into our hearts with elation
and opens our souls to faith.

Its name is Christmas and we have yet to learn
How to keep it close for more than
this one brief, shining moment.
Someday, perhaps...with love.


Come Home For Christmas

Unlock the door of your heart -
Enter the gentleness within.
Open the window of your soul -
Breathe in the season of miracles.
No matter how far you've traveled,
It's time to come home now,
Where Christmas abounds in love.

Merry Christmas to All

Monday, December 11, 2006

Wednesday, December 06, 2006




Christmas waves a magic wand over this world,
and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.
--Norman Vincent Peale

Time was with most of us, when Christmas Day,
encircling all our limited world like a magic ring,
left nothing out for us to miss or seek;
bound together all our home enjoyments, affections,
and hopes; grouped everything and
everyone round the Christmas fire,
and make the little picture shining in
our bright young eyes, complete.
-Charles Dickens

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past,
courage for the present, hope for the future.
It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow
with blessings rich and eternal,
and that every path may lead to peace.
-Agnes M. Pharo

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back
to the delusions of our childhood days,
recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth,
and transport the traveler back to his own fireside
and quiet home!
-Charles Dickens

The joy of brightening other lives,
bearing each others' burdens,
easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts
and lives with generous gifts
becomes for us the magic of Christmas.
-W. C. Jones

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree:
the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.
-Burton Hillis

Whatever else be lost among the years,
Let us keep Christmas still a shining thing:
Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears,
Let us hold close one day, remembering
Its poignant meaning for the hearts of men.
Let us get back our childlike faith again.
-Grace Noll Crowell

Christmas! The very word brings joy to our hearts.
No matter how we may dread the rush,
the long Christmas lists for gifts and
cards to be bought and given--
when Christmas Day comes
there is still the same warm feeling
we had as children, the same warmth
that enfolds our hearts and our homes.
-Joan Winmill Brown

Christmas Eve was a night of song that
wrapped itself about you like a shawl.
But it warmed more than your body.
It warmed your heart... filled it, too,
with a melody that would last forever.
-Bess Streeter Aldrich

Christmas ... is not an eternal event at all,
but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart.
-Freya StarkFrom

Home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to another.
The warmth and joy of Christmas,
brings us closer to each other.
-Emily Matthews

Christmas--that magic blanket
that wraps itself about us,
that something so intangible
that it is like a fragrance.
It may weave a spell of nostalgia.
Christmas may be a day of feasting,
or of prayer, but always
it will be a day of remembrance--
a day in which we think of everything
we have ever loved.
-Augusta E. Rundel

The merry family gatherings--
The old, the very young;
The strangely lovely way they Harmonize
in carols sung.
For Christmas is tradition time--
Traditions that recall
The precious memories down the years,
The sameness of them all.
-Helen Lowrie Marshall

Friday, December 01, 2006

Cry the Dead


Slowly, the hole is filled with earth, tossed down first by the hands of the beloved and bereft, later shovelled in by anonymous workers - the workers are the only ones with dry eyes and unburdened hearts. His widow slowly drops a mourning bouquet over the fresh earth, while his daughter collapses in front of his marker, sobbing. Looking for support, the little girl reaches a hand to his tombstone, delicately tracing the engraving that served as his legacy and last words:

We are voices,
only voices now,
silent echoes of the vacant
Height,ephemeral,
whispers in the universal night.

We were bodies,
we were humans once,
and proudly drew our breath
along side companion humans -
comrades unto death.

And much like Flander's torch*
only our memories remain
to beg for some miraculous truce
while the world fights on,
the same.

We are voices, only voices now
soft midst wars' alarms
yet still we go on pleading
for a laying down of arms.

Briseis