my mother and her mother

my mother has a stream of mixed up photos

she likes her christmas trees white and sparse,

empty of memories, with only white ornamentals to make up for aesthetics

she is proving something to someone always

i know it will be perfect regardless

she is too good at orchestrating beauty in small things.

my nana is less of a perfectionist

more of a collector of many twinkly trinkets

they sway on the branches, and no matter how many branches there are

the trinkets will always find one another

they clink and clank, weighing the branches down to the ground

colors, so many, you might be blinded

and yet, they are filled with joy from the memories they hold

vacations, and jobs, and hand-made crafts

collected over the years

i only hope to access this beauty in my christmas tree

a pinch of the joy that their trees hold

in their long prickly branches.