TESTIMONIAL

My mother finished high school.

There was a photo of her fellow graduates
   -- Milton Grove School, Class of 1924 --
      three girls in white dresses,seated,
      and behind them, standing,
      four boys, soberly attired
      in unaccustomed suits and ties

It hung on the wall of my parents'
bedroom, testimony to her
first-one-in-her-family achievement.

Twenty-three years later, when I was
about to begin my own venture
into the "realms of academe,"
(a phrase she had learned
from her favorite teacher,
Mr. Becker), she pointed me
to the photograph and recited
the names of her classmates
along with a brief biography
of each, ending with . . .
"and now she . . . and now he . . ."
followed by a description
of their current station in life.

She was especially proud
of Adam, who, she said,
was now living in Japan, employed
as a teacher. The point of her
review was clear to me
and required no further explication.
School, I saw, was my passport
to possibilities undreamed of.

MARY'S CHRISTMAS

I hope you won't take
what I'm going to say
the wrong way,
dear, but now maybe
you'll believe what
I told you months ago.

I know, I know,
they were only sheep herders,
but this morning when I saw
them kneel there on the straw
and stammer out
that they'd heard
a heavenly choir
and said they'd come
to worship the babe
they knew would save
us all, I believed them.

Didn't you?
   

CHRISTMAS WISH LIST

It gets harder every year

No more ties please
or sweaters
I prefer choosing my own fruit
unboxed
Thank you all the same
Same goes for candy
nuts
beverages

My needs are cared for
To conjure up some wants
seems silly and selfish

If I'm not mistaken
gift cards
for peace on earth
are still not available

REALITY CHECK

there is something about
the slop of first winter snow

slush the next morning
the slap dash of cars

ferrying their drivers
to ports of work

that compels reflection
an unwelcome reminder

that beauty is evanescent
every flower fades

each glorious sunset
sinks like a stone

into a sea of darkness
one day's fairy dust

becomes the next day's
sodden slippery slosh
   

EBENEZER SCROOGE, UPDATED

Go ahead. Explain to me how
the story of a child born to
a young woman in a backwater
town two thousand years ago
got transmuted into this orgy
of Black Friday, Cyber Monday,
billion dollar spending spree
to say nothing of obligatory
parties, insipid "Holiday" music
and all the rest of it.

I'm serious. I'd really like
to know, and while you're
at it, tell me why the whole
Santa Claus thing, which
teaches kids that their parents
are big liars, is such a good idea.

Go ahead. Explain.
I'll wait.