All posts by Wesley (Wes) D. Sims

Wesley Sims has published two chapbooks of poetry, When Night Comes, Finishing Line Press, Georgetown, Kentucky, 2013, and Taste of Change, Iris Press, Oak Ridge, TN, 2019.  His work has appeared in Connecticut Review, G.W. Review, The South Carolina Review, Liquid Imagination, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Breath & Shadow, Plum Tree Tavern, American Diversity Report, Artemis Journal, Poem,  and others.

Cedar Christmas Tree by Wesley Sims

Cedar Christmas Tree

Holiday traditions cling like ivy.
As a youth, come mid-December,
I went hunting for a cedar tree with Dad.
We trekked across tan, sage grass fields,
December-drab pastures, or maybe drove
a mile or two into nearby woods
in his ’49 Chevy to find a suitable
dark green specimen about six feet tall,
not so misshapen it couldn’t be trimmed
to some semblance of conical symmetry.
We hauled it home, square-cut the trunk,
made a stand of two crossed boards
nailed to the bottom.
Whacked off a stray branch or two,
whittled the top to take a star.

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