Christmas night:
A potato-casserole weariness
Settles in upon the land.
We are ankle-deep in tissue,
Love and Lego,
Lists of who gave what to whom,
And I am wondering what became
Of those cedar trees
We would cut and trim Christmases ago,
Holiday trips to my mother’s home,
The Yankee cousin who didn’t like grits.
Cedars gave way to
Scotch pines, then to
Fraser firs that fill a room.

Outside our door at Golden Pines
Two cedars now grow wider and taller
Even as I grow shorter.
They wear strings of white lights
That do not reach as high
As they once did.
They consider this
A better use of their time,
Unmindful of the sacrifices
Of their forebears.

South Carolina:
Cross, marchers, a nation’s flag:
Times not forgotten.

Virginia:
Park Service industries,
Proprietary
Patrician blood.

Louisiana:
Architecture triumphing
Over conscience.

North Carolina:
Quakers, German pietists
Should have hung in there.

Florida:
Hard to believe
They really cared.

Other candidates:
Kentucky, West Virginia:
Their choices admired.