The Yearly Christmas Letter (uncencored version)

I was having a conversation with some family while looking at the Christmas cards that were sent to my parents' home this year. A couple of them had the "yearly letter" from people we usually only hear from on the holidays. You know the one. Anyway, I was thinking about what it would be like if people "really" told what was going on with their family. Here's an example:

Dear Friends and Family,
This year has been interesting. I moved in May because I was rejected to 3 PhD programs, and am working at 3 new jobs, and I still don't make enough money to live without support from my parents (at age 35), but at least I have them. My brother has started smoking weed to get through his mental problems. He has had some pretty bad road rage too, but has been working on it. The pot smoking helps, and don't worry... It's okay for him to smoke pot because it's decriminalized where he lives. My sister has had a bunch of health problems but still loves to work on projects around the house all the time. Her partner calls her "the man" in the relationship. They are happy. Mom and Dad are funny. They bicker a lot, like they always did, and dad sleeps in the chair or watches football if he's not working. Mom takes on too many projects, and can't get them all done, and loves to be with the kids of the family. She organizes big get-together's for all of my cousins' kids cause she still doesn't have any grandchildren of her own (though we're all in our 30's). Most of us are in debt up to our eyeballs, and we get depressed a lot, but we have each other.
We hope you had a lovely year, and have an even better New Year!
Merry Christmas,
Love, Us

where to begin

at the beginning! oh, god, I can't do that...so anyway, I've been at my folks' house in Alabama...loving the family and friends I've gotten to visit...little time for blogging...
I want y'all to go look at my cousin's blog...it's funny! She's a mother of three and workin' her humor on this blog.
Oh Jo thank you!!! She noticed I didn't have a link...such a nerd I am!
madmamma

Dear Christine,

our secret ingredient

we see stars in the landscape
granite in the corners of our eyes
mica sparkles in our pores

we laugh over mountains
giggle with rivers
chuckle through valleys

time stands under a
peach tree, blossoming,
petals floating, waiting

we grow pods from our fingertips
fill our bellies with dirt and sand
water in our nostrils feels right

we keep our hands in the mixture
the dough of life

The gods and grading papers (American sentence for the day)

My friend Anna just told me, while taking a needed break from grading term papers,
"The gods are looking favorably on me; I just won at freecell."

Dear Christine,

Gray

If only the present
was one, but if it is,
it's got a heavy bow
on days of rock sliding
and molten rivers. I'm

blinded by this elephant
of a mountain
tusks growing at my toes,

ears flapping at this hot
breeze, and the stench of
life-manure.

Lean forward, they say!
I'm almost touching the ground
with my face. I don't need

a trunk, swaying, grazing
the dust.
The thick gray of clouds

incarcerates me on this hill-pile
of days.
Fog grows roots.

Dear Christine,

You're unfettered.
I'm unfurled,
open to the wind,

rolled out like a mat
to be trampled, mud and
sand and fiber.

I'm spread out on a table
hungry for the feast,
burning with candles.

I'm released from the
sternum of romantic love
cracked open and falling

out onto the floor
like yards of intestines
stretching snake-like

basking in sunlight.
I'm an uncoiled slinky
no longer slinking.

I'm tentacles flat
on the ocean
floor.

This is in response to Christine's poem
"Dear Holly.": balanced on the edge