Christmas, 1990

CHRISTMAS, 1990

Well,
          I made it home for Christmas...

What does it mean, this Christmas thing?
          What does it mean to me?
How to describe sensations you can touch,
          but seldom see?
Just yesterday I didn't care
          if Christmas came or stayed,
but gazing now on faces dear
          I find that thought waylaid!
I near allowed self-pitied pride
          to wall my heart away
from all the joys- the tears and smiles
          I've found at home today!

So,
          What does Christmas really mean?

It gives me pause to contemplate my life
          and what I've done.
To realize that life is love,
          not battles lost or won!
I've been the whole world over
          yet I say I've not one friend-
For every soul that I have met
          is family, in the end!
So I am filled with unbound joy
          those here tonight, to see.
Yet saddened not at empty chairs
          of those who could not be...

For they are represented.
Their shadows sit just so...
          Remembered often,
touched and warmed by loves' soft afterglow!

Well then,

Here's what Christmas means to me,
          I s'pose I'd have to say:

That Love's within-
'Tis always been!
At home,

          or far away!


Written after 19 years in the Army, and getting to be with the "Whole Fam Damily" for the first time in a few years for Christmas!  But there was ONE who would never attend again, and I missed him dearly!  So I wrote this with George foremost in my heart, and I like to think he helped a little.  That would've been like him!