Holiday Poetry From Boreegard

The Ancient Yuletide

As Grandpa was wont to say,
Within earshot of the family,
“Life is not all skittles and beer.”
My New England family first arrived to be greeted
By Massasoit. And it is well
not to forget their eventual afflictions,
Their vicissitudes, their breast-beating jeremiads,
For surely their woes make our modern
moments of despair seem happier by comparison.

Winter is icummen in, Lhude sing goddamm, goddamm,
And unhappy were the trials of our Rehobeth antecedents,
As Metacomet’s mistreated savages,
Savaged them those many winters ago.
They drank from the cup of common calamity,
As Indian hatchets split skulls and disemboweled
indiscriminately. No Christmas for the captives,
Forced to tread through an unforgiving icy landscape,
To a desperate, unknowable Puritan fate.

So drag the Yule log into place,
Tune the caroling zither,
And let the wassailing begin.
Grandpa was right about the skittles and beer,
But, my darling dears, the presents have been wrapped,
The Christmas cookies have been sugared and baked,
Santa’s on his way,
The Christ child is born once again,
And the shining city on the hill beckons yet.

Boreegard
December, 2009