Sunday, January 8, 2012

34 Years of Christmas Poems: Christmas 2009





I suggested to you at the start of this project that the poems would reflect many trends; personal, historical and technological. The last poem in 2008 asked for help as challenges seemed about to overwhelm. This 2009 version is yet again another "dark night of the soul" request for assistance, to find the inner light and choose to embrace it.

As we get older, it will be fascinating to see how historians choose to recall these years. I am experienced enough to know that there is no "hard and fast" fact based history; it all depends on the motivation and inclination of the observer scribe.

I instead am very thankful and appreciative to somewhat understand the power within. The holiday season normally stirs up fairly powerful emotions. As inspiration strikes me, a "reminder" of who we are, what we are all connected by and to, will imbed itself in the verses.

After that, it's all there for the choosing. Muddle around in the darkness or embrace the light; that's entirely up to us. It always has been and I believe that it always will be.

That choice is what life is all about... in my humble opinion!

Christmas 2009
by
Richard Perrotti

Prophets will come, profits will go,
Especially as the daylight grows dear.
Whether past or present, frenzy arises
Towards the end of each calendar year.

We seem at split purpose as days grow shorter,
Depression dueling with bliss.
We conjure the memory of childhood joy
But something seems vacant, amiss.

Perhaps these times we’re now living
Can account for deep holiday blue.
But this feeling was viral, rapidly spreading
Like a full-blown holiday flu!

One quiet evening, I prayed for assistance
To try and return to the light.
Even Scrooge had his troubles, compounded by ghosts,
Yet emerged from his soul’s darkest night.

As if in a dream… Was it a dream?
A voice from within did advance.
It posed but one simple question;
“Christmas by choice or by chance?”

This thought surprised and confused me
But the voice did not hesitate.
“You cover your light with a bushel
And bemoan the cruelness of fate.

Choose to be one with your power,
Not chance what the fates will allow.
You walk in the footsteps of angels,
Who never ‘muddle through somehow.’”

With that, my present did beckon
Like a gift bestowed from above;
My spirit rejoined by my choosing
To live from the power of love.



December 2009 (the events grow shorter as we approach "now"):
8th - Bombings in Baghdad, Iraq kill 127 and injure 448.
11th - Tiger Woods announced an indefinite leave from professional golf to focus on his marriage.
15th - Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner makes its maiden flight from Seattle, Washington.
25th - Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab unsuccessfully attempts a terrorist attack against the US while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253
28th - 43 people die in a suicide bombing in Karachi, Pakistan, where Shia Muslims were observing the Day of Ashura.

2 comments:

  1. "Muddle around in the darkness or embrace the light; that's entirely up to us. It always has been and I believe that it always will be."

    It's always a choice. And that is what it's all about...in my humble opinion as well.

    Great stuff!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, sir. It's sometimes hard to remember and that's why the stirrings are much appreciated.

    ReplyDelete