What Has Christmas Become

What Has Christmas Become?

What has Christmas become and

what have we become along with it

One day, just twenty 4 hours

One thousand four hundred and forty minutes

86 thousand and four hundred seconds

Why should this one rotation of the earth

Demand such overwhelming

And relentless joy?

Sleigh bells, tinsel, baubles

Tables groan with roast carols

Brussel sprouts stewed in bile

Sparkling garlands of regret

We pretend to celebrate

and weep in corners,

Screaming in tubs of empty sweet wrappers

Relinquishing the pain of what we don’t have

Dreams unborn, loved ones lost

People like sheep blind to despair

Crammed in every public space

Impervious to the aching souls or

desolation they stand beside

Rather than sing peace and goodwill to the sky

Post it through next door’s letter box

Instead of pangs of compassion

for each TV advert, consider

the deprivation at your own back door

What have we become?

And what could we be

If our empathy could stretch further

And our care could extend

Beyond the turkey, past the cranberry sauce

And all through the months

Long after the fake reindeer are packed away in the box

What could we be?

What might we become?