christmas all year long

i feel extra weepy
moving through november
the calendar doesn’t make sense

im now unfamiliar with a regular christmas
the birth of Jesus has gotten all tangled up
with the death and birth of my own children

last year i decorated quite defiantly
almost as an act of will
that george come into this world with breath

this fall i have no delusion
that this will be the winter she survives
everyone that could be here is here

and the celebration and devastation of that
makes me wish
it was just christmas all year long