The Eve, the Day, the Joy

By Joseph Hesch

On the Eve and Day of Joy,
the presents were covered
in their smooth and sparkling raiment,
as were the trees and roads
in their fresh-snow greeting card grandeur.
Come the gathering, all those wrappings,
of packages and countryside,
were torn by child and adult,
each in their own way—
hand, scissor, sled, SUV. 
The magic was so quickly broken,
And what was smooth wonder
and sparkling mystery
the night before and at dawn,
had been torn, crumpled, stained
and rendered debris and nuisance
to everyone’s continued joy.
Moms and Dads near-curse the mess
of late-day. Kids ignore or revel in its chaos.
On Boxing Day the broken ugliness
of cold fact will be exposed.
Yet all will be forgotten with the advent
of a new year, a new hope,
a new anticipation
for the sleek magic of the Eve and
the Day we came together
and were joyously unbroken.

This Silent Night

By Joseph Hesch

Standing on the back porch,
11:39 PM on the 24th.
I’m cold and the chill air frosts
my nose and glasses. 
This is nothing new 
for a late December night,
but something’s different.
The wind chimes dingle-ding
just as they do in August. 
The trees sway and creak
as they did last month
and the months before that.
Perception stretching beyond
fading frame of consciousness,
maybe to snare hoped-for revelation,
I realize it isn't what I’m sensing
that's off. It’s what I’m not.

Over behind the big trees,
and the red-brick suburban bedsteads
lightly snoring smoke into the sky,
the normal hum and howl of
late-night on the Interstate
is absent.
I realize it’s because this is
That Night and travelers are safe
with their own, I hope.
And I want to stay here,
not travel another step,
to breathe in all this cold and quiet,
and breathe out crystaline clouds,
silent hymns of joy.
To be one with
this Silent Night.


Here's a little Christmas Eve poem that was inspired by standing on the same back step as my summer poem, "Illuminati." It's a true response I had to standing there waiting for my golden-haired semi-muse Mollie to do her thing (What else is new?) the late evening of December 24, 2009. Consider it my Christmas card to you, in thanks for the support you've given me in this first year of blogging poetry. I've linked "This Silent Night" up to dVerse Poets Pub for the crew's Open Link Night.

My Island

By Joseph Hesch

The autumn rain lifted overnight,

and in the morning our road
seemed a seascape as I looked East,
a long black beach curving ahead of me.
The puddles were sun-mirrored tidal pools
surrounded by the final tossing
of russet shells from the oaks.
Above, a grand artist,
with wind-blown flourish,
had dry-brushed strokes of gray
over the white impastos He scattered
across a canvas of palest blue infinity.
And I, the sleepy suburban Crusoe,
breathed the sweet breeze of morning.

Oh, I’m as tired of writing sad, breast-beating, introspective poems as you probably are of reading them. So today, I went back to my initial source of inspiration. Pardon the pun, but I went back to Nature. My morning walks with Mollie almost always provided my groggy brain with some poetic fodder--shuffling little old men, honking geese, neon prisms of broken ice—but this one was as simple as it gets. I just looked at the road and sky and sucked in a breath of elation.

I decided to post this little poem for Week 10 of dVersePoet Pub’s Open Link Night. If you like to read poetry from a world-wide cast of verse wranglers, you really should pay a visit to the pub, where my friend and poetic fairy godmother Claudia Schoenfeld is in charge tonight. And don't be afraid to leave a comment here and there. Especially, well...here!