The Eve

• Ryleigh Adams, Grade 12
• Poetry
• 2010

Tinsel, baubles, Christmas cheer
do not make much sense.
As all that rests in this black heart
is ash and dust and webs.

For excitement I do not feel
upon each Christmas eve.
I just sit inside my cave,
the ceilings, walls, crushing me.

No longer do I remember a time,
when lights held a warm glow,
for the only light in my life,
departed in the snow.

The flurries cleared her eternal path,
that final Christmas eve.
The doctor’s sympathetic words,
the comfort fleeting, ‘may she rest in peace.’