for Hannah

My outrageous, talented, uber-creative, beautiful daughter Hannah turned 11 on the 17th of December 2008. The back story to the poem is that in my memory of the day Hannah was born the weather seemed unseasonably nice. A quick Google search confirmed that the 17^th was the only day in December of 1997 when the temperature hit 60 degrees.

thirty-one days in december,
i only celebrate two;
one, the day of jesus' birth,
the other when god gave me you.

twenty-fifth day of december,
we remember the birth of god's son;
but of all december's thirty-one days,
that's eight past my favorite one.

day number one in december
is actually day seventeen,
for that is the day on which I did see
the most beautiful thing ever seen.

thirty days were cold that december,
--nineteen ninety-seven--
but the seventeenth day hit sixty degrees,
as my hannah arrived from heaven.

sixty degrees in december
--a clear and bright blue sky--
the perfect way for god to say,
here's your angel from on-high.

eleven years since december,
--four-thousand eighteen days--
and Hannah rose you've made me proud
four-thousand eighteen ways.


-- James Sizemore (December 2008)

© 2012 James A. Sizemore. All rights reserved.