Re: Merry Christmas,Happy Hollidays

[Hawkeye255@aol.com]

        A favorite of mine for 30 years, from Lawrence Ferlinghetti
                (a 'beat' poet of the late 50's/early 60's)

                    Christ Climbed Down

    Christ climbed down
    from His bare Tree
    this year
    and ran away to where
    there were no rootless Christmas trees
    hung with candycanes and breakable stars
    
    Christ climbed down
    from His bare Tree
    this year
    and ran away to where
    there were no gilded Christmas trees
    and no tinsel Christmas trees
    and no tinfoil Christmas trees
    and no pink plastic Christmas trees
    and no gold Christmas trees
    and no black Christmas trees
    and no powderblue Christmas trees
    hung with electric candles
    and encircled by tin electric trains
    and clever cornball relatives

    Christ climbed down
    from His bare Tree
    this year
    and ran away to where
    no intrepid Bible salesmen
    covered the territory
    in two-tone cadillacs
    and where no Sears Roebuck creches
    complete with plastic babe in manger
    arrived by parcel post
    the babe by special delivery
    and where no televised Wise Men
    praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

    Christ climbed down
    from His bare Tree
    this year
    and ran away to where
    no fat handshaking stranger
    in a red flannel suit
    and a fake white beard
    went around passing himself off
    as some sort of North Pole saint
    crossing the desert to Bethlehem
    Pennsylvania
    in a Volkswagon sled
    drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
    with German names
    and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
    from Saks Fifth Avenue
    for everybody's imagined Christ child

    Christ climbed down
    from His bare Tree
    this year
    and ran away to where
    no Bing Crosby carollers
    groaned of a tight Christmas
    and where no Radio City angels
    iceskated wingless
    thru a winter wonderland
    into a jinglebell heaven
    daily at 8:30
    with Midnight Mass matinees

    Christ climbed down
    from His bare Tree
    this year
    and softly stole away into
    some anonymous Mary's womb again
    where in the darkest night
    of everybody's anonymous soul
    He awaits again
    an unimaginable
    and impossibly
    Immaculate Reconception
    the very craziest 
    of Second Comings

        from "A Coney Island of the Mind"  copyright 1958 by Lawrence 
Ferlinghetti