The Wreaths in the Window

Welcome to any Greek students from Aritstotle University in Thessaloniki who may be reading this blog as part of their poetry workshop class.  Unfortunately, this first poem is filled with allusions to American customs.  I'll provide some notes at the end in case you are lost.  (Please look at some of my earlier poems as well.  They are not as full of Americanisms.)

                                                     The Wreaths in the Window


                                           Our new neighbors down the street celebrate
                                           every season and occasion, not just with the
                                           Christmas evergreen but also with the harvest
                                           horn of plenty, the Halloween pumpkin,
                                           the Thanksgiving turkey, the Veterans’
                                           Day flag, and the Valentine’s Day heart.

                                          Now I find myself imagining what sour
                                          or silly signs I might post to scandalize
                                          the neighborhood: a bunny on a cross
                                          for Easter, a half-naked Liberty
                                          for the Fourth, a bleeding purse on April
                                          15th, and on Groundhog Day,
                                          the shadows of my former selves
                                          to help the winter linger on.


Notes:  The Easter Bunny leaves eggs and candy for children, hidden around the house on Easter morning.
             The Fourth is the Fourth of July, our independence day.
             April 15th is the ay that federal income taxes are due.
             In February on Groundhog Day in a town in Pennsylvania, a groundhog comes out of his den.
             If he sees his shadow, he goes back into his den, and we are supposed to have six more weeks
             of winter.  (Someone being a shadow of his former self is also a common phrase, decribing someone
             who is not as good or strong or smart,etc. as they once were.)

                      I'm not sure why the blog is not formatting the notes in the way I am typing them,
               but I can't seem to stop them from getting scattered in odd ways all over the page.  Sorry about that.