The fruits of last night's insomnia:
Christmas Eve, Nineteen Sixty Six, new to the old
New England town, just turned thirteen, not yet shaving.
Invited to go caroling, I walked with the cold
Steam-breathing neighbors. On the porch-lit paving
Snowflakes expired. Seventeen-year-old Tom
Played trumpet; his gloved fingers worked the valves.
Adeste Fideles we caroled: Oh Come
And merge in music our partitioned selves.
Uniting elders, parents, kids and youth,
Tom's trumpet seemed to signal a Christmas truce.
Then, "See you next year," we promised. But in truth
We stayed at home next Christmas Eve. The news
That we'd lost Tom was new, his horn unclaimed
Beneath his boyhood bed. We, unconsoled,
Could not, having lost something unnamed
Sing joyful and triumphant in the cold.