A Neighborhood Child
One Christmas eve my ceiling hung
With thready webs a glow behind
Cast lace patterns on my bed
That Yule eight reindeer ran the covers
Then through every midnight room
I cried to mother father brother
All of whom had shed by dream
Their task of season’s rush and bother
Free but lost to my entreat
“Can’t you see them paw prance?
Oh mother how they rear and point
At Santa – that jolly Christmas ghost”
All filmy things once designated
Then not real evaporated
And I sat straight up in bed
Rubbed the cobwebs from my eyes
Memory of tinsel candy
Presents in my drowsy head
Awake to silence angel hair
Little men in forest dress
Imaginary pixies on the stair
And then remembering the tree
(all hazy else it seems had been a dream)
The tree that by our fireplace rose
In thought it glowed above the dreamy web
Those blue green red silver lights
Had formed quaint phantoms on my bed
I’m up on tiptoe and carefully
Am sneaking toward the living room
(Inky blackness don’t you see)
Don’t you see the little man
Dressed in Santa suit belt and boots
Spreading presents neath the tree
Now truth be known so sorry am I to say
‘Little boy blue’ is yet in bed
Those phantom figures swimming his head
And late that eve ceiling bright
With visions of the coming day
The wisest Angel of the night
Makes visit singing of the play
A song of filial brotherhood
With child invests the neighborhood
Copyright © Daver Austin | Year Posted 2009
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