For Julia Rose and Alice Bea Guerin
Tomorrow is Christmas, the heart’s havoc
With delight. Downstairs, the unnatural tree,
Will, like it does every year, evoke
With molded glass and light, such memories.
Will my daughters quite see this ornament?
Will they see, as I once watched, what seemed
For hours, the orb darkened by tinseled boughs,
Radiating needles, laden and bent,
The improbable crystal spark moonbeam,
Still, silent as time itself? I think how
They might even see the heart that moved hands
To place it there, in the long vanished lands
Of youth and time they now fill, sweetening
The earth and holding back beauty’s fleeting.
