Shape Shifter

Midlife Christmas (1998)

This season he travels back roads,
admires frost-covered field stubble,
caroling lights on distant homes,
flicks off the chattering radio,

that insincere inquisition
of state affairs and high office.
He's abandoned freeways, the vans,
sports cars, and eighteen-wheeled commerce.

Yet his pick up is full of gifts.
Beside him sleeps his year old son,
beside him, his mother, head resting
on the wings of the car seat. Soon

they'll arrive at home in the woods.
Tomorrow his son from the first
marriage returns. He'd not have dared,
two years ago, to have wished

for something as simple and true.
Sometimes night seemed never to end,
but one life has been made from two.
God gives us as long as we need.