Saturday, November 23, 2013

Where are the gifts?


“It’s warm in here,” they say and sigh
And tumble into chairs that slide
There is dust here, too, rising from thick arms
Of the thick-armed arm chairs,
“Tell me,” they say, “why you bear no gifts,”
On this of all days when gifts must be given
They stair under the tree at all the angel hair
And shake their heads and ask what’s fair.
“I keep my gift until night,” I say,
“When all good kids are tucked away.
“You know all that clap trap about
“Santa and his merry route.”
“No,” they say staring at my lack of sleigh
And where stocking at the mantel sway,
And wonder if they’d been good
And if I bear coal under my hood
“And those?” they ask, “are from Santa, too?”
As they wonder what it is they’ll do,
When they can’t get gifts they fought to find,
Will Christmas then seem a waste of time?
Out in the cold for slow long my toes
Are as numb as is my nose
And I watch their thick arms rise to go
Shaking the world I used to know
And yet so desperate to get their gold
They lug along their sacks of coal


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