Footprints

Your footprints are obvious at Christmas time, In the snow, their size and their angle, Which puts in the back of your mind, Where you’ve been, your life’s history and tangle. Becoming a question to others, prying dads, After some weeks of that first glance, Of your private footprints, your silent carriers, They sit down asking you about your dance. Different faith, different pathway to tread, You duck the questions and evade carefully, The inquisition and their formidable scheme, To section you into a diluted, disturbed anomaly. But on that first winter footprint so giving, You took the opportunity to analyse, Your whereabouts and your situation, Successes, failures, and you don’t yourself tease.  Nobody was about, no stares or glares, Nobody was there to deride or sneeze, And you don’t tell anyone at home, Only real friends and olders who please. They believe in you and have your beliefs, Not to exclude you or suppress your needs, To look at you with kindness and affection, Without preconceived ideas, laws or creeds. They uphold people as fair and giving, They include all and locate and care, They place curtains when there’s shyness, And converse so as with interests to share. Snow can be so kind to the mind, tender, Plucking tunefully at your memory, So that you can build up your own character, So that you too won’t be guilty of bigotry.