Cheer Is Not What You’d Expect from Christmas


Cheer is not what you’d expect from Christmas:
Headaches are more like it, lack of sleep,
Raw nerves, rough words, waits to make you weep,
Irritable hours, days, intense, relentless.
So much money, time, so many dreams
Tied to one quick wanton winter’s morning,
More an orgy than a merry dawning,
A ritual divorced from what it means.
Still, each year the love within it gleams.

Nicholas Gordon