Winter Tales by Carmen Ruggero (ebook reader with highlight function txt) 📕

hanging tinsel and bows and trinkets
when out of the silence, I heard a man’s voice.
Startled, I turned: “Who’s there?” I wanted to know.

I heard the voice whisper again, and one more time
I asked: “Who’s there?”

“Who, is not as important as what I’m here to say.”

The voice, firm but warm, commanded attention.

“I’ve a story to tell you, I think you need to hear.”

I find it hard to explain, pragmatic as I know I am,
but I was compelled to listen to a ghostly yarn.

He didn’t begin his story with a once upon a time…
He started with the accounting of a special birth
and not the child in Bethlehem. That would have been easy to guess.

“It is a very precious child,” he said, with purpose in his tone.

And as the tale unfolded, I transcended the sound of his voice and stepped into his yarn, my fantasy, if you will, and found myself walking across a field this winter night.

It was dim and cruel – no creature could have survived.

I was cold and beginning to fade, when suddenly,
I felt a warm presence beside me. I turned to see a young man of humble portent and he smiled:

“I’m just a farm boy,” he said, “my home’s down yonder, a bit.”

“Are you the one whose voice I’ve heard?”
His blue gaze sparkled under that bitter December sky
when he looked at me and again, he smiled.


We pushed our way through frozen remnants of the harvest,
jumping over plow tracks and dry ears of corn
and the young man beside me wasn’t talking, any more.

“So, finish the story you want me to hear,” I urged.

“Soon enough… soon enough…” He said.

A dim light inside a barn just ahead, was visible now.
Just a few steps and we were there to find it empty.
I stood just outside not knowing what to do.

“Why am I here? Whose birth do you want me to see?”

The young man offered his hand to help me inside;
I took it and froze to see the puncture in his palm.
What do I do? What do I say? What do I call him?
He smiled again as if he understood my confusion.

“We’ll call this your birth. You’re the special child
who forgot herself in the midst of what you call living.”

“But why am I here? A barn with not an animal in it,
an empty farmhouse and a dead corn field – why?”

“’Cause you needed to see what nothing looks like.
A child would think it a playground; to you, it’s an empty barn.
A child would fill her stocking with dreams;
yours is filled with needs and wants; nothing else fits.
Where are your dreams in your Christmas list?”

I fell to my knees; understanding and yet, not – not.
I’m dreaming! That’s it! Why would He honor me so?
His presence pulled me in – there was no letting go.

“I don’t know what to do…” I cried.

The words I heard him speak, I knew I’d heard before
but somehow, their meaning was fresh as a newborn thought.


“Love yourself as you would a child; learn to pray as children do…”

No pause to reflect on what I’d seen and heard and I was home to see my old trimmings sparkling with a touch of fine antiquity.
And the thought of Christmas felt as it was always meant to feel:
A gift of life; manifested by the birth of that special child within.

The End
Carmen Ruggero@2009

Carmen Ruggero has sole ownership of this work, and no part of it can be copied, distributed, printed or reproduced without her permission.

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Publication Date: 12-15-2009

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