Poet’s Corner – Lift Your Glass, It’s Christmastime

(Three score Christmas past:
I sit with my loves;
Some felt;
Some seen;
Some lost in ether;
Some?  A dream.
Bells of time, knelling:
I have caroled
Holding hands;
Singing songs of peace and joy
For life across the lands.)

Children dream of sugarplums.
Silent is the Night.
We all hear The Little Drummer Boy,
While we dream a Christmas, White.
We all can tell you what Christmas is,
No matter where we live.
It’s why we grow to understand:
The gift ‘s in what we give.

The gift of time, wrapped in a heart,
Which gives no matter what.
The gift of touch, a hand that’s warm;
Shared feelings from our gut.
A Christmas meal with fav’rite friend;
A Christmas song to sing;
A movie watched with loved ones,
Where angels get their wings.
A hug, for those out in the night
When there’s nowhere else to go;
Or a smile for a stranger,
When winter winds begin to blow;
Or the soldier in the Holy Land
Asking God, “But, Why?”
While holding a machine gun,
Pointed toward the sky.
We pay it forward for those behind;
And help Grandma cross a street;
And for the ones lost, ‘cause they’re blind,
We guide them through the bittersweet.

I remember children playing,
‘Round the Christmas Tree:
And as I look out from my heart’s lens;
I see a child that is me;
My head thrown back from laughter;
Hanging rain of leaded shine;
Nomo Bubbles going nowhere;
With popcorn on a line.
The paper stars, that Mama cut,
Dipped in ruby colored wax;
Would adorn the tree that Daddy cut
With Grandpa Wilson’s axe.

It’s when I look to the Northern Star,
I feel profound recall.
For every life on planet earth–
Our thoughts are big and small.
And so is Christmas, don’t you see?
Whether we believe in it or not.
For 3-score past, it’s come to me
That Christmas is what we’ve got:
Inside our home;
Inside our soul;
Inside every tot.
There’s sparkle inside the eyes of hope;
And hope for eyes which cannot shine;
Still, in this moment, while you’re reading this;
Lift your glass…
It’s Christmastime.

Top photo: Bigstock