Within the graying frame
of that sad, old house
ravaged by that Northwest rain
stands a reliquary for our dead joy:
the remains of an old Yuletide tree, our tree
bare-limbed, heartwood gone to rot.
A nearby window, tired of the fight, gives up
its breaking glass trumpets a blast of wind;
a last, lone ornament, an orb of delicate crystal
drops from it s branch, falls straight and slow
and shatters in a rainbow cloud,
an unseen finale to a ruinous tale
of the quiet end of our lost love.