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H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 2 0
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Intergenerational Love Poem
He has fallen asleep next to her
on a red leather couch with a blanket
keeping him warm. Her hand, bearing
a gold and silver ring, rests on his
smaller one. His head lies on a pillow
cushioning his dreams taking shape.
What story do these hands tell?
A love story between alternate
generations? From different countries?
Different languages? Different cultures?
Yes and no. If there is a generation
between these different size hands,
how have they come together so perfectly?
How could they be so warm and happy
together touching without one single word?
It’s as though they are two hearts beating
as one, two hearts that need no words
to make them breathe this silent story
of the bigger hand of a grandmother
loving the smaller hand of a grandson
as they touch again for the holidays.
© Norbert Krapf
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MERRY CHRISTMAS 2020
Norbert & Katherine Krapf |
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H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 1 9
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Grandson in the German Woods at Four
In the woods my grandson puts
his tummy on the forest floor
and looks around. He sees
the curving shapes of leaves
and sunlight splashing
onto and between them
dripping onto the earth
and himself. He rests
his hands on his round
Franconian cheeks, looks
out and around with dark
Colombian moon eyes
as his free American spirit
soars upward and out toward
all creatures and shapes
he senses himself a part of
and knows like a little Buddha
how rich is the life he feels. |
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from The Return of Sunshine
(ACTA Publications, 2018)
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MERRY CHRISTMAS 2019
Norbert & Katherine Krapf |
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H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 1 8
Prayer Recited with My Grandson
on the Return of Sunshine
Thanks for lighting the frost on the trees.
For shining on snow on Oma and Opa's
suitcases parked on the balcony.
Thanks for lighting up the bedroom
in which Peyton plays with train toys.
Thanks for turning the snow on roofs
and church steeples below brighter white.
Thanks for streaming in all the windows
and visiting us after so much damp cold
and for making all the gray go away.
Do come back and see us another day!
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© 2018 Norbert Krapf
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2018
Norbert & Katherine Krapf |
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H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 1 7
The Golden Leaf
Little man dressed in three shades of green,
none of them dark, you sit on a smooth
large fallen branch holding a bright gold
five-pointed leaf as if illuminated
by a candle burning beneath it.
What you gaze at in the woods
clearly strikes you as significant,
perhaps even miraculous, worthy
of attention and reflection. The way
you hold the leaf you found tells me
you wish to bless all you can see
consecrated by light. At three,
grandson, you are the best priest
to show me what is transcendent
in the world all around us two.
The stick you hold in your other hand,
lower but parallel to rich humus,
also suggests you are pointing out
to yourself and to me what is
nearby, ordinary, and special,
but which I had seen as mundane.
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© 2017 Norbert Krapf
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2017
Norbert & Katherine Krapf |
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H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 1 6
The Bringer of Light
Now there is a Christmas tree standing
in the living room in front of the door
to the balcony, and a little boy holds
a string of lights to help his daddy light
their little corner of the world. Peyton
Benjamin Werner Lamm is two and holding
the light to his face, bathing himself in it,
holding it up to his German-American Opa,
so that no one will be left out. He is our
little bringer of light into a world that
so easily goes dark. Both the light he
holds and the smile he gives help us
see better what our blessings are,
what we might be able to give others,
and what his life and light mean to us.
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© 2016 Norbert Krapf
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2016
Norbert & Katherine Krapf |
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H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 1 5
The Blessing of Attention
Your head is tilted slightly down.
Light shines on your forehead.
Your eyelids look almost closed
but are open enough your eyes
can focus on something minute
that has taken on great significance.
Grandson, there is something
magnificently tender in your
concentration at this moment.
What your rapt attention says
is that you have found something
that speaks to your whole being.
Without looking at me your eyes
say you are in touch with the holy
and your whole being blesses me.
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© 2015 Norbert Krapf
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2015
Norbert & Katherine Krapf |
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H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 1 4
At Your Welcoming Party
At your Welcome Peyton party today
grandson, your great-grandparents
arrived to behold you for the first time.
They walked into the living room,
she held you in the rocker,
and he put all five fingers
on your tiny head and said
a blessing we could not hear.
Their son, your paternal grandfather,
died of a heart attack at fifty-eight
while you were still in the womb.
They appreciate what it means
to have the family line continue.
They make sounds that come
from a long way back in time.
We stood there knowing how
holy this scene was, listening,
watching, unable to talk,
having read about a somewhat
similar scene that took place
in a manger far, far away.
© 2014 Norbert Krapf
A Boy’s Yuletide Message to a Priest
Stay away from my Tannenbaum.
Stay away from my crib.
Don’t you dare kneel down
and put your filthy hands
on me in my baby bed!
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from Catholic Boy Blues: A Poet’s Journal of Healing
Greystone Publishing. © 2014 Norbert Krapf
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2014
Norbert & Katherine Krapf
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Prolog: Angel of Power and Protection
—Sculpture, Bridge to Vatican City, Rome—
What happens when the Angel
falls asleep after the mother
and father who held the baby
have to walk back into their lives
and the boy walks out into
the world and a servant
of God touches him wrong
when the parents aren’t looking?
By the time he is ready to
cross the bridge to Vatican City
his feet will not move forward
but turn in the opposite direction.
It is decades before he
can talk to the old God
by finding his own sacred places
and a new language for praying.
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This poem, inspired by a Denis Kelly photograph,
opens Catholic Boy Blues: A Poet’s Journey of Healing,
forthcoming April 2014 from Greystone Publishing,
© 2011 Norbert Krapf
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MERRY CHRISTMAS 2013
Norbert & Katherine Krapf
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H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 1 1
Songs in Sepia and Black and White
There was a
handsome man who
parted his hair down the middle,
a man who left way too young.
Died at
thirty-three, father
of six, the eldest only twelve.
This man played the mandolin,
sang German songs
as a tenor.
I sometimes see him in sepia,
sometimes in black and white.
* *
I sing fire sage
for Dorothy,
miniature irises and roses
climbing a white trellis.
Shallots growing
in her garden
and rhubarb stalks at the edge.
Lettuces in her cold frame.
Memories of a
father who died
when she was six, memories
of a mandolin and tenor voice.
* *
Stories and irises
for me, the grandson,
from Frank’s late daughter, Dorothy.
Songs in sepia and black and white. |
This poem will appear in
Songs in Sepia and Black and White
Photos by Richard Fields
(Indiana Univ. Press, Aug. 2012)
© Norbert Krapf
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MERRY CHRISTMAS 2011
Norbert & Katherine Krapf |
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H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 1 0
The Kaiser and the Little Girl’s Tongue
When she was a little girl during
WW I and wanted to speak German
like the elders she loved,
they would say, “You better not
speak German or the Kaiser
will get your tongue!”
So what happened when
my mother could not stop
herself from singing
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Silent night, holy night?
Did the Kaiser jump out
from behind the couch
and tie her tongue
in a nasty knot?
Did a tiny red devil
dart a sharp pitchfork
into her tender tongue?
This
poem © 2009 Norbert Krapf
is forthcoming in
Songs in Sepia and Black and White
(Indiana University Press),
photos by Richard Fields
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2010
Norbert & Katherine Krapf |
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H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 0 9
Love Song in the Kitchen
My
bedroom hung
right above her kitchen.
I woke to the hum
of her bustle,
her ongoing song
of family life.
When she was a girl,
she lay on corn shucks
with her sisters
in the upstairs bedroom,
gazing at stars through
cracks in the roof.
Sometimes a snowflake
fell on her face.
She
liked to hear
her daddy pluck
the mandolin
and sing tenor.
His
music stopped
when she was six,
except in her mind.
She
still hums
his country song
in my kitchen.
Snowflakes fall
on my face.
This poem appears in
Sweet Sister Moon: Poems
(WordTech Editions, 2009)
For more information.
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2009
Norbert & Katherine Krapf |
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H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 0 8
Woods Chapel
–for Oscar Sanchez–
In the woods no missal or priest
or lector or choir is necessary.
Every bird cry is a hymn,
the fluff of every squirrel tail
is a consecration, and faith
rises from the ground
to the crown, from stem
to stem of every leaf,
again and again.
This poem appears in
Bloodroot: Indiana Poems
(Indiana Univ. Pr., 2008)
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2008
Norbert & Katherine Krapf |
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C H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 0 7
One Long
Love Song
You
can’t ever have too much song.
Without song, life is too short, too long.
Without song, how can we get along?
Without song, how do we know we belong?
When we
believe in song, how far can we go wrong?
May music, lyric, love, may song make us strong.
Let us live as if life were one long love song.
May song give us voice and the courage to long
for
what is right and just and even ideal.
May song make us whole, show us what’s real.
No
woman or man could have too much love or song.
Without the blessing of song, life is left unsung.
One song, one psalm, one hymn, one verse of praise
can make life holy and lift the rest of our days.
May
each of us find our sacred song of songs.
Let us live as if life were one long love song. |
To hear this poem as recited to music on the CD
Imagine – Indiana in Music and Words
by Norbert Krapf & Monika Herzig,
(Acme Records, 2007), poem © 2007 Norbert Krapf,
“Memories of Petra” © 2005 Monika Herzig,
To download, go to www.acmerecords.com
For further samples go to www.acmerecords.com. |
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2007
Norbert,
Katherine
and Daniel Krapf |
C H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 0 6
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Candles
–after a Polaroid
manipulation
by Darryl Jones–
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When we light a candle
let us begin the ceremony
of celebrating the flicker
of light that helps us
perceive & appreciate
the folds of beauty
we must learn
how to open
as we pass through
this world we inherited
& must pass on
to those who follow.
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This poem is included in
Invisible Presence: A Walk through
Indiana in Photographs and Poems
(Indiana Univ. Pr., 2006)
poem © Norbert Krapf, image © Darryl Jones.
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SEASON'S GREETINGS 2006
Norbert, Katherine,
Elizabeth & Daniel Krapf |
C H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 0 5
Going to Church
-after a photo by Andreas Riedel-
All dressed up
in their Sunday best,
white shirts, suits, and ties,
one holds his hat
in his hand next
to his prayer book;
the other wears
it on his head.
They both smile.
They are moving ahead
as if entering the curve
on the last lap of a race
at a very good pace.
They are dressed to the nines.
No way could they look any better;
two old men going to church.
The way they smile,
the way they move
with such grace,
says ladies they love
are going to church, too
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This poem is included in
Looking for God's Country, © Norbert Krapf,
published by Time Being Books, 2005.
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SEASON'S GREETINGS 2005
Norbert, Katherine,
Elizabeth & Daniel Krapf |
C H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 0 4
Apples in Rainwater
-after a photo by Andreas Riedel-
In a puddle
of rainwater
that collected
between a growth
of weeds, beneath
an old apple tree,
these full globes
fell and rolled
together in just
the right way,
to find morning
sunlight that makes
them look like
orbs of gold,
compact bursts
of luminosity,
gifts brought
and left here
by the three
wise men
as they passed
on their way
from the East.
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This poem will be included in
Looking for God's Country, © Norbert Krapf,
to appear from Time Being Books on April 1, 2005.
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SEASON'S GREETINGS 2004
Norbert, Katherine,
Elizabeth & Daniel Krapf |
C H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 0 3
| STRAWBERRY PATCH SONG |
Afternoon sun filled the room
in which I stood as a boy
looking out the open window.
My mother was kneeling on stems
of yellow straw, picking red strawberries
in a blue sundress. As she piled her basket
with layers of ripe berries, the sunlight
coming through that western window
intensified, as if I were climbing
to a higher level of illumination
even though I did not know where
my feet were stepping. I heard her
sing a song that seemed to rise out
of the leafy green plants she was picking
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as much as out of her open mouth:
"I was dancing with my darling
to the Tennessee waltz." Whenever
I put a strawberry in my mouth,
break it open with my teeth, and taste
its watery sweetness with my tongue,
I feel the light streaming through
that western window again, see her
kneel between those rows of plants
sagging with berries, and hear her sing
that song as if it came from beyond
her and passed from me to you.
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This poem, © Norbert Krapf 2003,
is part of a manuscript titled
Looking for God's Country. |
SEASON'S GREETINGS 2003
Norbert, Katherine,
Elizabeth & Daniel Krapf |
C H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 0 2
| WOODS HYMN |
Where the path crossed
on a log the creek
flowed after a rain.
Treetops shifted
and dripped
in the breeze.
I stood deep
in those woods,
eyes wide open
for the shapes
of leaves, ears
tuned to the cries
of birds and cuttings
of fox squirrels.
To look was
to affirm a faith
I felt particular
to the place.
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To see was
to receive
a grace I could
not define.
To hear was
to know a music
that could not
be written down.
To breathe the air
of the woods was
to give thanks for
what was there
and nowhere else
and stood in need
of no thanks for
being what it was.
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From The Country I Come From,
(Archer Books, 2002), © Norbert Krapf
Information: www.krapfpoetry.net,
Archer Books; Amazon.com
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SEASON'S GREETINGS 2002
Norbert, Katherine,
Elizabeth & Daniel Krapf |
C H R I S T M A S C A R D 2 0 0 1
| THE LANGUAGE OF PLACE |
You have no name for it
but feel it pull on you
when you enter the hills,
like a forgotten language
a part of you spoke
thousands of years ago.
By studying you cannot
recover what has been lost,
but must let it rise
up from the landscape
and allow it to speak
in that part of the ear
that never unlearned
how to listen to what
is deepest as you give
yourself to the pull
of the place.
The way a creekbed
meanders through a hollow,
a breeze scrapes dry corn
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leaves against one another,
a mulberry tree stands
at the bottom of a well
of sunlight on a hill
beside a sagging barn
built on a site where
hunters once camped
as they travelled along
the ridges the glacier left
may give off syllables
that gather into words
that build into sentences
that carry a meaning
you intuit but could
not translate for others
unless you feel the ancient
rhythm and ritual of prayer
suddenly rise up from
the ground and pass
through and beyond you.
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To appear in The Country I Come From,
forthcoming in summer, 2002 from Archer Books,
copyright Norbert Krapf.
Information: www.krapfpoetry.net and www.archer-books.com. |
SEASON'S GREETINGS 2001
Norbert, Katherine,
Elizabeth & Daniel Krapf
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