It's a Pronoun Christmas

It often happens this way. I sit down to read, relax. Something catches my attention and a poem is born (forged?).

Last night I flipped through Ordinary Genius and saw this little suggestion:

"start with a pronoun, then give us the noun it refers to"

The author, Kim Addonizio, gave an example of a poem by Galway Kinnell that said, "What do they sing, the last birds." I had been wanting another Christmas poem, and it made me smile to think of making one this way. Okay, sort of...

Ms. Addonizio Advises Me
on a Christmas Poem

She said to give us a pronoun,
but I gave two. How could I
give any less
when facing a day like Christmas;
even Noah knew
to take two camels
(where would the wise men otherwise be?),
two donkeys
(Mary needed one to bring the child to birth
and the child, when grown, needed its foal
to take him to old Jerusalem,
where turtledove pairs
would no longer do,
so he freed them to fly to the trees,
and would join them soon
on a hand-hewn limb,
frail nest
suspended
between two thieves—
a him and a he,
two pronouns without proper
nouns to claim them.
They might as well have been
a you,
a me.)



---
Thanks to Andrea, of The Flourishing Mother, for inviting me to sit by her at the Christmas Brunch where Christy Tennant of IAM spoke. Yes, Andrea, I still do hands and feet. Thanks for the precious photos of yours. :)

And this is the beautiful Christy Tennant...



This poem is in honor of TheHighCalling's Christmas in Verse project.