Supposing Christmas never came —
Santa on strike, the reindeer sick,
the presents barely wrapped,
the wise men lost, their camels lame,
shepherds without their flocks
(due to an outbreak of ovine flu),
the Virgin Mary, virginal no longer,
painting the town red,
Joseph distraught, the Holy Child
sans swaddling clothes, sans stable,
mangerless, and the bright star
of Bethlehem now a black hole,
turkeys extinct and Christmas trees
dead as Dutch elms — then I’d ascend
some nearby mountain such as Scafell Pike
or one afar like Ober Gabelhorn,
Aiguille d'Argentière or Monte Rosa,
and meditate within a little hut
like Thoreau at the edge of Walden Pond
or Kerouac on Desolation Peak.
I’d view the frosted ridges, snowy crests
(real mountain chains not paper chains,
real snow not the stuff out of a can),
thinking of nothing very much but Zen,
and letting pure agape flood right in.
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