I just wrote this poem a few minutes ago...don't know if I like this one.

This was just written. I wanted to tell a story. This time of year, we're so focused on buying presents, getting Christmas bonuses, creating our wish lists, etc. We tend to get lost in political correctness and lose our focus on the one main thing we should think most about: Love. This is a rough draft...

The Christmas Accident

The car was packed full with boxes and bows
and a spirit that had seen brighter days.
The weather was freezing, the ground was white
and the night air was a thickening haze.

She backed her car to the street; turned the wheel
aiming her headlights to a far away home.
The radio was playing overplayed songs
so she decided to pick up that cell phone.

Dialing the numbers, her eyes darted back
to those moving road lines now and then.
Finally a signal and number was dialing
But the voice she heard...it wasn’t him.

Her world had gone spinning in that single moment
and her headlights blurred the country scene.
Ice had tripped up her four, new tires...
Lord, what could this holiday mean?

She had lost that spirit some decades ago...
Perhaps, she was just a little older than five.
That was the last Christmas she remembered
when both her parents were alive.

That last Christmas was so magical
at least...up until that Christmas Eve
When an accident on some cold, dark highway
made Santa Claus decide to leave.

She couldn’t comprehend then
what she tries so hard to comprehend now.
Christmas is a time of love and loss
and a matter of when and how.

Her eyes opened to reveal a scene
of ice crystals and glittering paths
before she realized what she was seeing
was only a closeup of broken glass.

The car was wrapped in nearby trees
some fifteen feet from the road.
But being downhill from driver’s view...
Her fate...no one but God would know.

She closed her eyes and wished away
the life that she had come to live.
When a heart has become too broken
not a single piece, can it give.

She couldn’t understand the compassion
that others felt this time of year.
She saw it as another day, another time,
a season wrapped in obligational cheer.

The winter cold raced in to greet her
and wrapped her heart with its embrace.
The seatbelt drew tight against her
ensuring she wouldn’t leave that space.

The night seemed long, the hours short
as time was running out of sand.
She grieved aloud for her parents then
and thought she felt a warm, firm hand.

A bit of warmth flowed through her soul
and lit those darker dreams in heart.
She finally felt a greater love...
Of which, she was only one small part.

She forgot about the rat race of Earth
and those presents wrapped in her car.
Wish lists seemed forgotten then
For that’s not who we truly are.

The morning sun crept slow upon
the wreckage in the culvert.
Rescue crews surrounded the tree
that held tightly to human worth.

Her breath was weak, but steady
as EMTs wheeled her into the van.
Then she remembered dialing home
and hearing the voice of another woman.

Her husband was there to ride with her
as they raced toward the hospital’s walls.
“Who was that who answered your phone
last night when I had called?”

He looked at her with surprise
for he was about to ask her the same.
“A woman called me late last night
and said that ‘Abby’ was her name.”

Abby was her mother’s name...
Of course, he did not know
for she would never talk of them...
Was but a forgotten show.

“She said that you had called her
but must not have recognized her voice.”
“Why did she call me? I do not know her...”
He seemed slightly angered and annoyed.

“She told me she knew you were on this road
when she heard the collision in the background.
We searched the whole twilight through
until this morning when you were found.”

Then she came to realize the significance
of life and of the love which fills it.
Everything continues in someway...
It’s only our indifference which kills it.

The Christmas spirit was Life itself...
The newborn baby from mother’s womb.
It’s not about wish lists and presents.
Why do we fill it so with gloom?

©December 19, 2007 Lori S. Maynard