The Gift
I remember the little white package.
It was a rippled red ribbon so neatly tied.
Crossbow over the square gift.
Placed just under the 3 ft. Christmas Tree.
Set on a table with white cotton tree skirt.
“It’s not much,” she would say.
“Oh, Grandma, anything you give is always too
much.”
We would smile as her trembling hands reached for the gift.
“Thank you Grandma,” as we opened the gift gingerly.
There in the little gift was a pair of sheer stockings.
“Grandma, how did you know, this is just what I needed.”
She would smile delightfully with light behind her blue eyes.
You see, the gift of love was one she could not wrap in paper.
The caring hands were never measured by a moment.
Her memory is not in just one generation, but many.
Her gift, I treasure, it was the gift of love left lingering.
Copyrighted: December 2016 CMM
Walked Among the Woods
I looked past the window pane and saw the gray bleak sky,
and felt the chill left in the house where all the quiet abides.
I’m not sure which bird I heard but off in distance it sings,
And I listen until the quiet resumes, then hear him once again.
Ice has passed and snow’s to come, blanketing frozen ground,
as I walked among the woods a breaking crunching sound
of frozen earth reminds me of the labored year has passed.
We look for good news to come, and hope that will surpass.
This hope was birthed among the timbers and quiet baby born,
yet the world goes on the same, even after Christmas morn.
Listen, as the year ends, Father times bids us farewell,
while the story remains anew among the promised tale
of birth and baby, poverty persist and still it overcomes,
rage and war and even death as life brought by a son.
Copyrighted: CMM 2008
Missing Christmas
Christmas lights flicker
into colors, green and red.
The silence of the season
hangs in what is not said.
It is the knowing you are not here
your smile I miss the most,
The quiet way you made it so
a holiday Christmas toast.
I will miss our first Christmas
with you not around.
I will miss all the other Christmas’
in memory do resound.
Copyrighted: 2011 CMM
Mom’s Slippers
I turn to see a shoe I missed
I thought I could climb the stairs
with even sounds of flippers.
I stepped into the stairway
and much to my surprise.
I lost the one, kept the other
I felt it gone and realized
I still had one on the other foot
and that was ok you see.
I will continue on in venture
carrying my mother’s shoe with me.
So such is life in little things
our children do take with him.
The climb the shoe and little
one too and leave a shoe with them.
© CMM 2015
Women Before
If I could pick up the pieces
and build a bridge from me to you,
we’d brush our hair with scents of yesterday’s living,
color our lips with stains of mauve secrets.
There would be miles of many years,
across miles of tears and sacred truths.
We’d hang the railings with aprons tied together,
and our bras that covered our bosoms of nurturing souls.
Bridging over rivers from birthing beds wet with sweat and fluids from the womb,
we would cry the storms with tears of sorrow, spring rains with tears of joy.
If I could pick the pieces of all our pain and build the hopes with the strength remain,
we would hear the chorus of all before us and harmony welcome those to come.
Mom’s Christmas
Mom, I wonder if you see the star,
one promised long ago.
Is it brighter from time passed
with a constant glow.
Are you closer to the cradle,
of which no time can rot,
This manger scene, of babe
and birth that never is forgotten.
If in heaven you get to see
all the wonders of that night.
I see your smile in all we love,
and I know you are alright.
© CMM Christmas 2011
Christmas Tea
Brown aroma filters through
the porcelain pot wrapped in
a holiday Christmas print
Tied at the top with a green ribbon.
Pouring into the cup the sound
of generations past of many pourings,
expressed within generations,
a knowing of shared time.
The warmth of the spiced tea
brought smiles caused by conversations,
of simpler relationships in an eloquent
fluent exchange of Christmas gentility.
Christmas 2013 copyrighted: CMM
The Drop
It was just a drop.
“What drop?”
“You know the drop.”
“Tell me, but first tell me why?”
“Why?” “We cried.”
“Because of the drop.”
“What drop!?”
“One who humanity denied.”
“Because, it was a drop.”
“Because of the drop?”
“The brown paper bag.”
“Matched the drop they denied.”
“But, we still cried.”
“We still cry.”
“Each time they deny.”
Copyrighted: 2016 CMM
Paradox
I enter into today with the celebration of loss and love —
I cherish your bedside as we said good bye and
All I could do is cry
It has been five years and your sweet desperation breathed between two places
Your eyes closed as some said the “Our Father” and others’ dark faces
Posturing, some told lies and some truths; you listened.
Reaching into the depths of the last moments, you closed your eyes
For the last time you pulled from a place we all know only once in time
You called out ” I love you.” The room quieted
copyrighted: CMM 2016
Brains, Beauty and Brawn
Hey, that’s how I feel, Hello, that’s what I’m about.
A date, that’s not what’s great,
What’s great at any rate,
Is the relationship that dictates,
Our friendship that is true…
Hey, that’s how I feel, Hello, that’s what I am about.
First it’s secrets that are told,
Then its Ferbes that are sold,
We hop in our Trac when told,
For our evening we pursue…
Hey that’s how I feel, Hello, that’s what I am all about.
As we learn and time will pass,
our parties they’re a gas,
and each other we harass,
the thing remembered will be you…
Hey that’s how I feel, Hello, that’s what I am all about.
We grow to depend on each other,
and the friendship becomes a brother,
and the bonding like no other,
the separation will soon be due.
Hey that’s how I feel, Hello, that’s what I am all about.
Hold on to me real tight,
as someday it will feel like night,
because my brother will be out of sight,
remember that, I love you…
Hey that’s how I feel, Hello, that’s what I am all about.
Listen dear friends take my hand,
and wherever you go understand,
there is no ocean and no land,
that memory will subdue…
Hey, that’s how I feel, Hello that’s what “WE” were all about!
(Dedicated to my daughter, and her two high school buddies endearingly called, ‘Brains, Beauty, Brawn’.)
copyrighted: 1999 CMM



