are strewn street-side, abandoned,

the ornaments having been

extracted and safely packaged;

the nobles who bore them with pride

through the long vigil of Christmas tide

are now flung aside.

Seven years of growing in a country aisle.

Four weeks of glowing festive Yuletide style.

My hour long morning walk passes so many

casualties unceremoniously cast casually

along the street, fragilely angled at curb and gutter,

unclothed and left utterly exposed in rows

awaiting the garbage truck to come dispose of them.

Near the apartment parking lot

a mass of trees is high-piled,

mound of green and brown, branch and trunk,

bleak bunch of castaways

that only yesterday were hailed as heroines of the home,

angel-topped and gilded in gold,

now shorn and forlorn in winter mud

next to a dumpster filled up

with crumpled wrapping paper, cardboard, tape—

the things that hold or hide what, growing late,

we forget we ever loved.