Before Christmas

I am flying
Towards the full moon of winter
And on the lightest of clouds
I am hurtled
Into a sea
Glittering with the lights
That will lead me home,
To curtains that billow
And the still white walls.

When we are alone,
My mother strings
Yesterday's lights
Over a tree
That is half my size
And the song she sings
I have heard before,
Of birds in twilight,
She tells me now.

I am surprised
That in all these years
I never thought
To ask what it was about.