CANCELED — A Holiday Reading with Charles Coe

We were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our dear friend Charles Coe on November 21. Charles was eager to present a holiday reading at NSM as a gift to his community—we were honored and equally eager to host him.

Charles will long be remembered for his wise, hilarious, thoughtful, caring, and powerful voice. Hundreds of us loved him. We encourage you to seek out his poetry, writings, and music and learn more about him on his website, Charlescoe.org where, if you don't already, you'll come to love him, too.

Today we offer this poem from his book, all sins forgiven, poems for my parents.

Christmas Night, 1957

Grandma's house was packed with family and friends,

all orbiting a dining room table jammed with cakes, pies and

cookies, a clove-studded, honey-glazed ham, a bronze turkey

slightly smaller than a baby pterodactyl, and at the center,

the star of the show: a gigantic crystal bowl that appeared

but once a year, with a half-gallon chunk of vanilla ice cream

floating in a lake of Grandma's egg nog.

It had always been Grandpa's job to stir in a fifth of Kentucky

bourbon. But for the first time this ritual was performed by one

of his sons. Uncle Roy, perhaps, or Uncle Albert, I don't remember

which. But I remember Grandpa's oxblood leather easy chair, empty

this year for the first time, keeping a silent watch on the proceedings.

At five I had no yardstick to measure the hole that chair created in

my mother's childhood home; I was too busy weaving through the

forest of grown-up legs for another piece of pie.

Finally, with the children overtired and sugar crazed, our coats and

hats were gathered and the exodus began. All night the spiked nog

had been off limits to my sister and me, but the taste we were allowed

just before leaving made us easier to load into the car. On the ride

home, while I dozed in the back seat, our station wagon was the world,

warm as a womb, the faithful engine's tireless hum, and drifting from the

front,

a lullaby: the murmur of our parent's voices.

- Charles Coe