December 26, 2011

Is the world a better place this morning?

midnight christmas mass a memory, wrapped
presents opened, the roast beef carcass
awaiting leftover recipes, gifts to be returned,
the christ child a day old, the shepherds gone,
magi on their way, postal workers celebrating
their day off, treadmills filled with overweight
revelers, carols silenced on the car radio,
boxes of cookies sitting and waiting for a
neighbor to walk in and help us clean out,
departed loved ones are still in their graves,
ennui setting in for the week before we try
again to fill our empty lives with joy, waiting
for the new year’s eve party, the new year’s
gathering to reminisce about the past year,
make resolutions for a coming stretch before
we once again find ourselves in the throes of
a christmas season, could we not live the
season all year, give presents of love and joy
to family without a price tag for each, could we
not rejoice in the simple gift of life, by this time
next year some will be gone, maybe if we are
lucky a new birth, not the christ child, but the
progeny of a family heritage will be born, we
come and go in a pattern we can’t understand,
we grieve and mourn and rejoice all in the
same time, not knowing which will come next…

A better place or a different place? I don’t know!