HOLIDAY MUSIC IN THE BLEAK MID-WINTER

by Mary K O'Melveny

Each time one hears Bing Crosby sing

"White Christmas," the virus has likely

claimed five lives. Last night we listened

to Ella’s version. I always wondered

if each time she sang it she thought

about racial irony or just conjured

up a view of snowy flakes on

the down low, sleigh bells providing

a back beat. I always preferred

the music rife with magical thinking,

chorale harmonies and swelling strings –

"Ave Maria," "The Little Drummer Boy,"

"Do You Hear What I Hear," "O Holy Night."

 

"We Three Kings," another standout,

spins its tale of faith burning beneath

a diamond sky. Those wise travelers

were my favorites. They radiated

intrigue enveloped by chilled air thick

with scents of cinnamon, clove,

licorice, citron and amber smoke.

Years after my mother died, she returns

whenever I hear "Silent Night." Each

December, we sat in an old Georgetown

church decorated with beeswax candles

and pine garlands, listening to a flute

rendition as delicate as a flock of doves.

 

This year, everyone’s holidays

are dimmed, as dampened as last night’s

fire ashes. Gravesites multiply

even as frozen vaccines are

borne across state lines like exotic

gifts. As the solstice approaches,

fresh as a miracle, melancholy

pushes against our need for comfort

and joy. We want to sing, to praise

new birth, even as snow falls upon snow.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

CHRISTMAS CAROLS

by Joan Mazza




I’m listening to non-stop holiday
songs between commercials for diamonds,
pet pajamas, end-of-year car closeouts.
While I chop vegetables or fold socks,
I sing along, unable to be quiet, even

for “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” Alvin!
I shout and laugh as if I were still ten
in the year of its release. Indelible,
unforgettable lyrics of Bing Crosby,
Karen Carpenter, Sinatra, Andy Williams.

My mother is frying meatballs and sausages
in that tiny Brooklyn kitchen. I hear her
swearing while making arancini
that resist holding together. At my desk,
I memorize geometry theorems

until mother comes to me with one
golden fried ball, triumphant. Cut it in half,
she says. Taste it! Inside, peas and meat
in tomato sauce. Perfect! I say, before
I return to my present in Virginia.

Past seventy, older than either of my parents
ever got to be, I wish my mom could see
me as I braid challah dough into wreaths
and sing, “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas”
with Burl Ives—the music of our lives.

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and she is the author of six self-help psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam). Her poetry has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Rattle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, The MacGuffin, Prairie Schooner (forthcoming), and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia, where she writes a poem every day and is working on a memoir.