The Christmas Lights

I miss the festive outward show

Of chilly late December nights

And windows with an inner glow

Lit up by little Christmas lights.

Meanwhile now as I walk along

The quiet street I hardly hear

The carols that call up the song

That turns a corner of a year;

Remembering a neighborhood

That’s no longer what I recall—

For moments outside as I stood

Amid snowflakes begun to fall,

I watched and was enchanted by

The lights that I no longer see,

Since I depend on memory’s eye

For what’s become a part of me.