Wink of an Eye

Among the decorations 

My grandmother put on my

Christmas gifts,

Here is the oldest, most fragile,

Now least presentable,

Ornament

Front and center on the tree: 

A once-smiling Santa

Who has since lost his mouth,

Gone mysteriously the way of

One of his twinkling eyes. 

This one-eyed elfin Odin’s 

Thick Nordic beard 

Suggests warmth as he takes me along 

The borderland of memory

With his reindeer granting passage

To the Valhalla of childhood:

Dad says every ornament goes on the tree.

Forget nothing.

Mom promises to vacuum when we’re all done.

We will have order.

Farther back, though:

Gram at the door, her ruby lips

Puckered to kiss her granddaughter

On the cheek

And Grampa behind her.

Inside, a place for everyone at her table

In the great hall of family.

The truth of eternal life is the searching,

Always the searching, for a way home.

An eye for the eye, 

You reset the clock,

Taking us back to the first moment,

The first gift,

First sight of the first tree

At the center of a universe

Adorning it with stars.

There it is in the wink of your eye.

So, too, in a grandmother’s kiss on the cheek.