Remember: An Original Memoir Poem for Christmas

Last Friday, I posted an original memoir poem titled Christmas Eve, which is about childhood memories I have of spending time with my family on December 24th at the home of my maternal grandparents—Michael and Anna (Chalupka) Kozicki. Michael and Anna were Polish immigrants who came to America in the early part of the 20th century. They met in Boston, got married, and moved to the North Shore of Boston where they settled and raised four children—two girls and two boys.

Following, is the last memoir poem from my collection A Home for the Seasons. This poem also takes place on Christmas Eve—after dinner. The "us" in the poem is my sister, my four cousins, and I.


REMEMBER
By Elaine Magliaro

Dzidzi tells us to put on our coats.
He steps off the front porch
and leads us down the stone walk
into the night.
Standing at the edge of his garden,
He looks up at the winter sky.
“There,” he says pointing to Orion’s belt.
“There are the Three Wise Men.
They followed a bright star to Bethlehem.
They journeyed far from home
just as Babci and I did many years ago
when we left Poland to come to America.”
He turns his eyes toward the house,
red lights glowing in the windows,
then gazes at his snow-covered garden.
“Remember this night,” he tells us.
“Remember this place.
Remember all the happy times we have shared here.
Every Christmas Eve look up at the Three Wise Men
and remember.”


You’ll find two more Christmas Eve memoir poems—Christmas Eve Polka and the Christmas Babka—here.

Note: I’m sorry that I haven’t been posting much lately. I got sick right after Thanksgiving and fell behind with all my Christmas shopping and preparations. I’ve been really busy the past few weeks playing catch-up with all the things that I have to do. Now, I have most of those things crossed off my list. I’m hoping things will settle down after the holidays so I can focus on my writing and blogging once again.

I must get back to work in the kitchen and bake two sour cream chocolate cakes—which I frost with homemade whoopie pie filling and then coat with a bittersweet chocolate glaze. This is one of my family’s favorite desserts.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

The Poetry Friday Roundup is over at A Year of Reading.