Gabrielle Gassin

The hand held saw

Bestowed whilst waiting

Its tiny rusted teeth menacing, for good purpose

Seems misplaced on December 1,

The anticipatory air filled

With the tinkle of jingling bells

And music

The children dressed in red and green

Their parents patient; it’s only once a year

The cutting down of a Christmas pine

Lends, once home and mounted

A vague feeling of wrong doing

The tree –

Un-huggable; its width

And dressed with things of human kind

Baffled spiders misplaced, re-homed, and

Wondering about the absent breeze

Tiny lamps tucked among the deepest green, a

Golden star threatening to tumble

two metres down and it would surely break

Once powered by sunshine, water

Now plugged in, connected, electrified

Four years of life amongst its cousins

Iconically trimmed; conical inverted

And now

The beginning of the end