Thomas Hardy

Barnes & Noble Fredericksburg supports local authors. Signed copies of two of my books are available there.

I am teaching both Creative Writing I and II this Spring. Seats are available. Those over 60 can audit for free.

Students in Creative Writing I will write 1 short-short story, 1 10-minute play, and 3 short poems. This class may be taken online or in person.

Students in Creative Writing II will write 1 short story, a second short story or novel chapter, and 3 poems. This class will be in person.

https://germanna.edu/enroll-germanna/spring

Rabindranath Tagore on the fear of your own silence

Signed copies of 2 of my books are available at the Fredericksburg VA Barnes and Noble.

Five of my books are available on their website.

I breathed the crystal air
into my lungs, sucked in so hard
I felt the cold burning my throat.

And I smiled up at the sky.
Taking my gloves off one at a time,
I blew hot breath onto my fingers
which were buzzing from the cold.
And then I grasped the trunk
of the pine tree and began to drag
it back down the hillside
to the creekside behind the Lundeen house.

Lars stood at the top of the hill,
and rolled one Christmas tree down.
It tumbled, the miniature of a larger pine
collapsing from a lumberer’s saw,
waterfalling snow and dry needles
as it fell, cheered on by Lars
in red-faced, red-haired glee.
Eddie stacked the trees in the valley
until the pile grew 15 feet high.

It was early January. Trees lay
abandoned along the snowy streetside,
some still clinging bits of silver tinsel.
One even had an ornament inside,
locked to the tinkling branch, hidden.
Each tree bled needles behind in the snow,
a green-brown trail like Gretel’s
from some housefront, across the street,
and down the slide of the hill to the valley.

When we could not stack the trees higher,
when they would only roll back down
the other side, we knew it was time
for the tree-burning. Eddie lit a rolled
newspaper from the matches my father
had given him, and we each touched
our own paper torch to his. Then standing
around the tree like druids, we put
flame to the stack of trees on three sides.

The dry trees roared to an orange
blast furnace that tongued the winter sky,
and cracked and heaved the wriggling air.
I looked through the wavering heat
like a lens between me and the others
who danced like Indians, whooping.
My face grew tight from the heat.
My eyes teared, from the cold I guess,
or from the heat. Not from the wisdom
of January. Not from any knowledge.
Not from any mourning of lost Christmas.

Just the heat and cold wavering together
in the valley until the stack of trees
collapsed at last to black ash.
One dark circle in the snow in January. 12/6/88

https://poets.org/poem/christmas-orphanage