Rebecca Sonniksen
Go ahead.Take down the tree.
Needles are dropping.
Toss out the wrappings. All revealed.
Resolutions made. Happy New Year.
But wait. Look up.
Outside the window.
See how our string of colored lights
Punctuates the darkness.
See how those spots of color
Bring lightness to the seriousness of night
Like a silly joke.
Wait until the winter darkness
turns to the lightness of spring.
Wait until violet grass-widows, yellow balsamroot, and purple lupine
push through the bulking basalt looming across the canyon
Then unwind the red, yellow, purple, blue, green specks of light
That dance across the railing of our deck.
The holidays are over.
But not our need
to say
to the vastness
to the darkness,
Wait,
we are still here.