Like God,
bidden or unbidden,
spirits will arrive.
For some reason
they love Christmas.
Perhaps it is the prophesies
about the Child.
They know who they are –
friends, family,
anyone who ever wandered
into the welcome of our smile.
No need to set extra places at table.
They only hunger now
for a moment of our memory.
But be assured,
their mission is not to haunt.
They will not enter the usual way.
Do not listen for the doorbell.
Do not wait for a card.
Do not scan your e-mails.
Do not check spam.
They appear from inside,
when our minds are too exhausted
to block entry
and we have given up
fighting back tears.
Too often we push them away,
insisting over and over again,
“They are gone. They are gone.”
We hug our loss to our heart.
Missing the point:
they are sent
as a hallelujah chorus
to sing us out of this narrow box
we mistake for the fullness of life.
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