Written in anapestic tetrameter in seven stanzas. Except for the middle stanza, each stanza contains seven lines with its last line groaning for a rhyming pair. This pairing is found in the fullness of the eight-line middle stanza.

Each Christmas through Dometown the rain-torrents blow
Reversing the crater’s Decemberly low.
No, it’s not named for its upside-dome lake
But rather the shape the surrounding homes take,
For igloos of stone are the proven resort
To fortress one’s owned from the desert sun-scorch,
From sand-squalls, the rain spell, and drifters in need.

The climate is awful. The people are worse.
It’s dog-eat for stones—finer domes are the purse.
The Moores were hell-bent on a five-dome estate
A pipedream they chased until crushed by its weight.
Yes, literal—caused by a room-to-room shout—
It happened one spring when their daughter was out.
Young Ivy remained to post-process their greed.

To scrounge and to savor, the townspeople came
They offered no solace, not even her name.
Besides, a teenager can stack her own stones,
Or sweet is the simmer of privilege dethroned.
But snobbery doesn’t fall far from the dome,
She toiled to restore both her name and her home.
Yet nine months of striving saw neither succeed.

With nothing of interest ‘xcept maybe his beard,
The eve before Christmas the nomad appeared
Tattered and scorched like he’d flaked off the land
And drifted, ignored by the town, to the sands
Of the trash dunes where Ivy with dome in her hands
Had collapsed from a search she’d no hope to withstand.
He dog-flopped beside her then shamelessly freed
From deep in his beardlocks a mustard-like seed.

With sunset commencing her dawning demise
“In need of a home?” he inquired of her eyes.
Annoyed and accused by the irony dared
Yet sorely in want of the company shared:
“That’s not what I need. I’ve been searching for grout.
The storm’s gonna turn my new dome inside out”—
“For what are you striving, dear Ivy? Take heed.

I give you this seed¹ and the rest that you seek.
When morning time pours², sow beneath where it leaks”—
“But the seams”—“Let them spread”—“And my things”—“Let them flood.
Nurture this seed till you first see it bud.
A tree will spring forth”—“And ruin my dome?”—
“Of course! Don’t you know that a tree can split stone?
Plant one ‘tween mountains and both will recede³.

The tree is your refuge. Its fruit you may eat.
Consume it and feed it to all whom you meet.”—
“How long till it buds?”—“Fifteen weeks to the day.”⁴
When shock turned to protest, he’d drifted away.
She eyebrowed the gap ‘tween the seed and his claim
Still wrapped in the moment he’d called her by name—
A burden⁵ from which she could never be freed.

© Tanner Rinke 2022

Footnotes

1. “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.” – 2 Samuel 7:12

2. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law…” – Galatians 4:4

3. “He said to them, ‘Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.’” – Matthew 17:20

4. This points to a significant layer of meaning within the story. Start counting from Christmas 2022.

5. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:29-30