We’d stumbled upon it, playing on a channel heretofore unknown to us,
Almost as if the remote, in a final, desperate attempt
To escape the CGI-augmented Britneys and Biebers,
Had taken matters into its own hands and steered us there
(Indeed, when we tried to find that channel later,
It had gone a-gleaming, replaced by some lower-case Telemundo)
Presenting no outsized and over-decibeled spectacle
But a stark, quiet, indeed all but silent black-and-white panorama
Where a distinctly un-scrubbed and un-homogenized Santa
Delivers no new cars, no cartoon-mouse vacation cavalcade,
No million dollar prize from some scripted faux-survival experience,
But those things from the realm of the smaller, the subtle:
A sweater, a meal, a bottle for those not overwhelmed by the contents,
All courtesy of a purveyor of gifts seeking nothing more
Than to provide some measure of comfort and joy
For those who were well short on either.
It all tends toward the romantic and maudlin a bit, one could contend
(And, indeed, did not the teleplay’s progenitor
Insist on spending his eternity on a lonely hilltop,
In order that he could have an unobstructed view of the cold, narrow lake
For which he’d formed such an improbable and irrational fondness?)
And those who take such a position may very well be right,
But it is equally likely that we could be better men in a better place
If the notion that we could rise above our tin-can and yowling-tabby tribulations
And embrace that within ourselves which is child-like and yet saintly
Was submitted for our consideration on more than an annual basis.
(AUTHOR’S NOTE: The poem’s title–and much else about it, to be frank–owes a debt to the December 23, 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone, entitled “The Night of the Meek.”
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But it is equally likely that we could be better men in a better place
If the notion that we could rise above our tin-can and yowling-tabby tribulations
And embrace that within ourselves which is child-like and yet saintly
Was submitted for our consideration on more than an annual basis…
This is the bomb – right here! Excellent thoughts for a time which glorifies greed and gluttony. I wish I could have expressed these thoughts so succinctly and so well.
Hello W.K., Sorry for the delay in catching back up with your fine work. “Tis now past the Season, and yet I hope it finds you safe, warm and relatively comfortable. I am still stumbling through the debris here, hoping to catch a “glimpse of that cold, narrow lake” beyond the discarded wrapping paper and shredded cardboard boxes. Happy New Year, my friend!
Bill
And a Happy New Year to you, Bill; your work was one of the bright lights of my 2012, and I expect 2013 to be no different.
i can’t imagine how you hold all this in your mind at once, or did you discover it at an even slower rate than we did
Let’s just say my epiphanies are not exactly lightning fast.