Grandmother's Tree

Grandmother’s Tree

As a child

I would sit beneath

My Grandmother’s Christmas tree,

Watching the bubbles rise

In lights shaped like candles,

The pink liquid percolating within.

Those lights took center stage

To shiny bulbs,

Tinsel,

Even the presents underneath.

Some years the branches

Were flocked with fake snow,

Which hid the green boughs,

But still let the smell of the forest

Fill the room.

My cousins would wrestle

On the living room floor,

In front of the big wood stove.

But I would sit alone,

Beneath the glow of that tree,

And dream the dreams of a young girl

Who still believed in magic.

-Rishell Graves

December, 2011