We empty out a magic house.

There is too much. Sometimes, I think the end is coming.

We give away thousands of books. I have no judgment.

I remember ones I want to keep and I see them and there they go. There they go.

But what am I to do? Where do things belong? Where can we put them?

We give them away. Carload upon carload.

Books and things, books and things. They pass through our hands. Out the door.

Some things have been packed and saved for 40 years.

My mother remembers us, little. I think she sees us in the toys.

When we look at toys together, I become little and I feel her love surround me.

Little toys. Simple toys. Little children. Simple children.

Things with possibility. And infinite future.

Objects with potential.

If I could be anyone, I would be my mother’s child.

*    *    *

A box of colored blocks is stopped on its way out the door.

Two small children, new small hands, make new forms.

They build a rainbow pathway for themselves. A rainbow bridge.

I think it is having children that helps me let things go.

There is nothing else so magic. No object so magic as these.

Let them not pass through my hands.

Let me hold them forever.

Portrait:

Two children, their mother’s mother, their mother’s mother’s mother.

[Portrait of deceased maternal maternal great-grandfather as a young man.]

Portrait:

Mother, her two children, her mother, her mother’s mother.

[Portrait of deceased maternal grandfather as a young man.]

Portrait:

Woman.

On Christmas day, we are a family.

Iris row-row-rows the boat of Uncle Dan and Akiva in the big black chair

up and down, up and down.

Gramma (my mother, formerly known as Mom but now moved upward to a twice-exalted status)

cooks in what once was and what some day will be a lovely the kitchen.

This Christmas, again, it is an in-between kitchen, where one can admire the sub-floor,

the patterns of glue of plywood, the angles of dangling wires,

and the texture of scraped plaster.

Whatever state the kitchen, Christmas dinner tastes the same: delicious.

Papa (known as Martin by his peers) interviews his 100-year-old grandmother-in-law.

His charm is measureless and beyond words.

Gramps (once known as Dad, but now increased in rank)

washes Christmas dinner dishes at the exact same kitchen sink,

still located in the exact same place (note that!)

for the 39th year in a row.

In attendance but not pictured:

Mama (a.k.a. Jess(si[ca]) : photographer

Dinner: consumed with glee and without pause

My children are little birds. Little birds, and sometimes I keep them in a cage.

A cage: a house, a school, a plug.

I sometimes take them to the woods.

Here are the woods. This is our earth. This is where we are.

Here we are connected.

Here we are. Trees and roots and sky.

Here we are falling things. Here we are buried things.

 
Here we are the wind. Here we fly.

In the dark of winter, color disappears. All is grey and brown and white and dim with hints of blue. I go out to see the sun. My camera and I go to the river to search for color, but we find little. There is my children’s clothing: bright of blues, stark black, crazy patterns out of place in the deep-sleep time of winter. Their clothing should be brown: the color of the sleeping earth. Sleep is good. Let us not wake it.

Apologies: I failed to take any photos of the celebration.

Fortunately, I captured a couple crucial photos of the preparation.

1.

Akiva (left, in alligator suit) and Iris (right, in her heaviest winter sundress) chopped nuts for the stuffing without eating too many.

2.

Dan did most of the pie work, Ari did most of the turkey work.

Akiva tried to reduce the stress incurred when a 6’6″+ (with shoes) person works for hours at a counter built to be ergonomically suitable for a 5’5″ person.

Dan & Ari came to visit for Thanksgiving weekend.

Ari has been working in a lab for a long time now without much time to be around animals.

She spends some time reading “Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm.”

She checks a few animal facts on her computer & deems the book accurate.

Iris gives Uncle Dan a drawing lesson.