Dan Guenther: Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve among the Bristlecone Pines

You traverse the snow-swept switchbacks

following the trail of your Norse grandfather,

a back country skier fascinated by the bristlecones,

the ancient pines that shelter bighorns from the winds.

Far below Denver’s lights stretch away to Colorado Springs,

and on Christmas Eve

the traffic flow westward on I 70 brings

winter pilgrims from as far away as Chattanooga.

In times past the liturgical day started at sunset,

with the faithful gathering at a high place to give thanks

while the heavens swung around the North Star,

that celestial body your grandfather called Odin’s eye.

Over in Aspen and Telluride yuletide feasting has begun,

and the snow angels, with all their certainties and style,

mix with mere mortals

who came to leave behind their year of regrets:

Your grandfather said that the business of living

had to do with simplicity and that wasn’t simple,

and that the beauty of the Rocky Mountains

reflected the glory of its maker.

You came here yearning for answers beyond your reach,

for everything within the cycle of faith and the firmament,

to an alpine grove already a thousand years old

when the Emperor Titus laid siege to Jerusalem.

Dan Guenther