A Christmas Charivari in Verse, and more

A verse to Christmas 

It’s great to have a holiday, to revel in good cheer,

And  a verse to Christmas is something to hold dear;

The hustle and the bustle, from shop to shop for days,

Cannot dispel the spirit, that the shopping overlays.

The science that we practice, in labs across the land,

Takes Nature from its setting, and puts it in our hand,

To look, to touch, to taste, to hear, its every angle seen,

Experience the place we’re in, to understand its mien.

The world is out there waiting, for all of us to scope,

To parse, and map, and sequence—but shun the facile trope:

It’s great to have a holy day, to show respect forsooth,

But always keeping holy, not promises, but truth!

The gifts we give, the bounty get, divert us for the day,

And let the world take forms we wish, our rev’ling minds a-play:

We wander through the fields of dreams, our cares for now on hold,

Though know we must, tis but a day when dreams we let be told.

If what we want is fantasy, and not the world we’re in,

Then reveling occasions can’t be excessive sin,
But then--back to reality our duty is to steer:
I'm not averse to Christmas, at least one day a year!

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Intermission: Even a grump can have good cheer--at least once a year!
(From the mega-wonderful Pogo, by Walt Kelly, representative of Porky's visit every Christmas eve; color added)

Thoughtful good wishes are what count at this--or any--time of year

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A turkey talks turkey about Christmas

You talk of peace, of love, and grace

And revel in the innocence

Of newborn mangered babe.

But then when dinner comes, you violent be,

And me de-feather, baste and roast,

And, carving, say a ‘grace’—to love!

I had a life, you know

With verve, and spirit free

We chased around the barnyard all

With no known cause to fear.

If love is truly in your hearts,

And peace, goodwill to all--

A wish to be that which you claim:
Eat Brussels sprouts today!

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A sonnet for our times
When, in dispute with favored theory's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf journals with my skeptic's cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hype,
Featured like him, like him with grants possessed,
Desiring that man's genome-promise trope,
With what I most esteem acknowledged least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on Truth, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
      For thy sweet troth remembered such wealth brings
      That then I scorn to change my state with Collins.

[after W. Shakespeare, Sonnet 29]