Poet’s Corner: A Big City Christmas Poem

2 mins read

by Henry Braun

So many wreaths and trees are hostages
For the withdrawing spirit. Even the jails
Are covered with them and the station houses
Twinkle in boughs and bulbs a festive welcome.
Where are the children merciful enough
To say they believe in Santa still? I watched
His vicar shot at by a ten-year-old
Armed with a toy ballistic missile launcher.
I laughed, of course — one cannot choose but laugh
And ride the loaded escalator down.

So many old distractions are at hand
To grace the time. Widows beguile the lunch hour
By decorating ledges on the airshaft
And in the park mild, city-loving deer
Are fed popcorn by priests.
                                          Silence surrounds
All the pieties of this gone world
Laid out in spangles under a cold sky.
Cities bear their unconnected sorrows,
From furnished rooms where egg nog watchers sleep,
Old men shepherding their loneliness,
To houses of the merry gentlefolk
Before which co-eds sing of Bethlehem.

Henry Braun
Henry Braun

Most of Henry Braun’s career as a teacher of literature and creative writing was at Temple University. Atheneum published his first book of poems, The Vergil Woods, in 1968, and his latest book, Loyalty, New and Selected Poems, was the first offering of Off the Grid Press (2006). He and his wife Joan live in Weld.

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