O twinkle-lit reindeer!

This poem is silly. Silly, I say.

Photo by Jack B on Unsplash

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Here’s what’s true, and also odd: something can be The Very Most Important Thing to you — Advent, for me, for example, and Christmas — and you still get silly about it every so often. I no longer apologize when that happens, even when I feel like a goof.

Anyhow: here’s a silly poem based on a true story. Keep your eyes on the skies; he’s out there somewhere.

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REINDEER MOON                                                                                     2012


								
                                                                                                  Each year 
in December, as Christmas goes up along my city street, the fire fighters
at the station down the block (square, big-doored, flat roof, tall flagpole)
fasten a giant wreath above their window; then, last winter, some fire-house genius
wrapped a wire mesh reindeer in twinkle-lights and set it above the wreath, 
at the flagpole’s base. All right, I thought, not my taste, but why not
a reindeer on the roof? At least the footing’s good.

                                                                                    Then one night,			                                                                            
walking home in Advent darkness, heavy from work, I stopped mid-sidewalk,
blinking up and across the street, stock-still ‘til I was sure of what I saw:
the twinkle-lit reindeer on the firehouse roof, facing north and swinging
his antlers from side to side, east to west and back, scanning the horizon
for smoke or a flying sleigh, or shaking his head in disapproval (if that
is something reindeer do) as he gazed across the hills to the next county.  

                                                                                                                  For longer 
than you would think necessary I stood there, half wishing someone would walk by
so I could ask: you see it too, right, a twinkle-lit reindeer shaking its head? 
But no one came, and deciding that was best, I looked away at last,
shivered, and walked on down the block to my apartment building.

							                     A few nights later
came winter’s first storm, wind and rain sheeting against rattled windows, soaking 
and snapping the fire house flags, all night and most of a morning; and when
the sky cleared and I walked down the block for fresh air and coffee, there
was the reindeer, slewed at the flag pole’s base, up-tilted rump now turned toward
the street as if to moon (if that is something reindeer do) the passers-by, 
and resolutely twinkling — as was the head, aimed west and groundwards, still in motion
left to right and back, counting the rooftop puddles. By sunset a rescue crew
had righted him and he stood braced and facing north again, antlers stiffer
maybe than usual, twinkle-lights blazing, as if doing his best to forget 
the whole undignified incident. I sympathize. I wish I could.

							       O twinkle-lit reindeer,
faithful to your fire house, I wish the storm had set you free to fly,
as reindeer are rumored to do in December, high above the rooftops,
unburdened by any sleigh, nose pointed in whatever direction you and the wind
might choose, above storm-clouds and through the rain, kicking up your rump
to moon the city as you fly across the moon, bound for whatever steppes
and snowfields your twinkle-lit herd calls home.

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