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| Christmas, 2019 (Year of the Bûche de Noël) |
December's challenge was designed to be simple: a poem, of any form, about light, hope and/or peace. Like many simple things, however, it took work to get to the heart of what I should do with this task. In the end, I decided to lean upon our yearly theme of conversation, and seek out a poem about light that I could be in conversation with. With Liz's help, I found Lucille Clifton's poem, "the light that came to lucille clifton." Do you know it? It begins:
the light that came to lucille clifton
came in a shift of knowing
when even her fondest sureties
faded away. it was the summer
she understood that she had not understood
and was not mistress even
of her own off eye
That's how I've felt lately. My fondest sureties faded away, driven from me by the death of my son, Wade. I haven't written about it, not a word, because I haven't been able to--and because some piece of me didn't want the Internets to have him, strange as that sounds. I wanted to hold him close, not scatter the news of him out there for garish ads to devour. But it's time to say his name. After less than a year of battling cancer, Wade was buried at Arlington National Cemetery this past summer. My grief is never-ending. But there is still light. Light he would want me to see.
I didn't write this poem with him in mind, but it enabled me to tell you about him. That is a gift I wasn't expecting from this simple challenge. And I'm deeply grateful to my poetry sisters, who have grieved with me, and supported me in the most beautiful, tender ways.
In conversation with Lucille Clifton poem,
“the light that came to lucille clifton”
I brought the recipe for the light
to my daughter’s house one Christmas—
it was in the shape of a Bûche de Noël—
that clever, cocoa-tinged log of sponge,
spiraled about a layer of espresso buttercream,
then slicked with frosting as dark as walnut bark,
combed with the tines of a fork to mimic the roughness
of woodgrain, and garnished with clustered bulbs
of creamy marzipan mushrooms, meticulously made—
all to be destroyed, sure as the Yule Log
it mimics used to blaze, crying for the sun to return—
what a burst of merrymaking, yes?
So I brought the recipe for the light
to my daughter’s house one Christmas—
and asked her to make it. She was much better
at that kind of thing, and she would enjoy
the making of it, right?
I can see that you can see
where this is going: The cake, in the end
was correctly, beautifully, gloriously made,
perfect, even. But I was wrong.
I only saw that years later, because
that is how light works. It takes forever
to get from a combusting star to your blind eye,
and in the meantime, you stumble
in the darkness, not knowing that
you are not mistress
of the cake, not mistress of Noël,
not mistress of even your own “off eye”
as Clifton so mysteriously says—
You are servant to the light,
which instructs you to make toast,
if that’s what you can do, and butter it
all the way to the edge, and let it be enough—
or light might say: make the same damn soup,
the one with lentils, and lots of garlic,
and lovely curls of greens, and a wedge of gooey
parmesan melting in the middle. Light might say:
Noël was, and will be; see it there, it comes.
It is on the table. Amen.
----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)
You can find my poetry sisters' poems about light (and hope and peace) here:
