Christmas Tree

Near the end of his days
My father would still go out,
Some mid-December day,
Into the Iowa countryside
To find a Christmas tree.
Tongue between his teeth,
He would haul it into the house,
Wrestle it into the metal stand,
And string it with colored lights—
The big ones, scratched with age—
The kind where if one goes out,
They all go out.
In those last years,
No other decorations were necessary:
No tinsel, no strands of beads,
No silvered balls that reflect the world
Like a fun-house mirror.
In the early darkness,
He would sit in his easy chair
Basking in the soft light of the tree,
As he listened to carols on the radio.
Perhaps it was enough
To help him be, for a moment,
The little boy collecting coal
Along the train tracks,
Whose Christmas was just
An orange in a stocking,
And a pair of gloves
For cold-reddened fingers,
A boy whose mother was still alive
Cooking a scrawny goose
And filling a house full of love.
That, of course,
Is the light
Which never goes out,
The evergreen thing
That makes the darkest days
Into a Christmas.