Hereunder

Christmas Stockings

                             I

Nigh ev’ry sock I’ve ever worn
Was gift to me on Christmas morn–
A fact the mind should quick embrace
Since stockings hang from fireplace
On Christmas morn.

                            II

A naked sole in summer’s heat
Gives easing breeze to fevered feet.
But, in the winter’s chilling brrrrr,
A woolen sock is de rigueur.

                            III

One’s ancient socks, in time, expose
Some wear upon the heels and toes.
‘Tis well for those who smartly darn
A stitch of thread or knit of yarn.

                            IV

But, if the hose be truly torn,
Awake the day the Child was born,
And peer beneath the glittered tree
To see if waits some socks for thee
On Christmas morn.

 

Let There Be Light... Maybe

Gentle visitors, Saturday, before Sunday's ice and snow and sleet and perilous mixture thereof, your humble Contributor spend much of the day, evening, and night hanging Christmas lights.  Around these parts, certain homeowners are veritable artists who work not in oils or watercolors but in lights, creating fantastic, luminous, shimmering spectacles -- the type one would normally pay to see.  Like the original Creator, except on a far smaller scale.  Your humble Contributor's artistry, by contrast, is marked by half-hearted draping of tired shrubs with flickering, failing bulbs.  Last spring, said shrubs ended their earthly lives (and, quite likely, their lives in any realm) in a most violent fashion by the dull edge of a garden tool, and were replaced by newer plants, as yet too youthful and small to bear any festive display.  

So, we were forced to come up with a new lighting design that made use of other outdoor vegetation, and settled on a crepe myrtle, two American variegated boxwoods, and a cherry tree of some sort.  This foliage of varying heights and horticultural significance increased the level of complexity and difficulty over the aforementioned tired-shrub-drapery.  

Stung by prior incandescent embarrassments, your humble Contributor tested each strand of lights before proceeding.  Check.  Next, he set about disentangling the Gordian Knot of strands, which would re-entangle themselves if left alone for even a few moments, like a writhing brood of electrical vipers.

Then, he mounted tottering rungs, stretching as far as his aging limbs would reach, to affix the lights, with the hope that the arrangement might call to mind, in the passing motorist, a bright constellation in the dark winter firmament.  Sadly, on his descent, he noted that the highest filaments were themselves dark.  No amount of bulb changing or fuse swapping would remedy this atramental condition.  Hence, the dim bulbs were left, at the top of the tree, to represent darkness.

When, late in the day, the other Householder expressed dissatisfaction with the sparse decorations, your humble Contributor toiled into the ink-black night to supplement said decor.  A neighborly neighbor offered additional lights -- some burning, some half so, some not, -- retrieved from the dark recesses of his garage attic.  Finally, past midnight, in the piercing cold, the display shown brightly in the tired but upturned, smiling face of your humble Contributor.  And, so he retired, with no feeling in his extreme members and a core temperature below that which is recommended.

The following evening, with the delicate bulbs and their tiny attendant wires shivering in the icy mix, the whole venture tripped a breaker, and we passed from light back again into darkness.

It is no secret that all Christmas bulbs are now made in China.  The other Householder believes that this Sino-dominance of the holiday light market is part of a sinister conspiracy.  Here is her theory: 

• Westerners, particularly Americans, feel compelled to hang Christmas lights to celebrate the season;
• The Chinese-made lights are manufactured to cause irritation, then frustration, then near despair;
• The Westerner eventually abandons the whole enterprise;
• Over time, he ceases to celebrate Christmas, then question the whole notion of divine incarnation and salvation, and, finally,the very existence of the divine; 
• Thence, in the midst of despondence and disillusionment, the Westerner finds a worn copy of the Quotations of Chairman Mao and rediscovers hope in the saying: "All the rest of the world uses the word 'electricity'" They've borrowed the word from English. But we Chinese have our own word for it!."

This sounds plausible enough; but, the theory is severely challenged by such festive carols as this.

 

 

St. Patrick in the Dock

Judge:	[reviewing papers]
	Alright. Counsel does your client have a last name?
Counsel:	No, you honor – he just uses "Padraig"
Judge:	Alright.
	Padraig, do you understand that you’ve been charged with multiple violations of the Endangered Species Act?
St. Patrick:	Ni hea!
Judge:	Sir.
	Do you understand that the government alleges that you did knowingly and willfully destroy a variety of species of snake by driving them from their natural habitat?
St. Patrick:	Sea. Ach...
Judge:	Counsel, does your client speak English?
Counsel:	No, you honor –
	only Gaelic, some Latin, and smattering of Old French.
Judge:	Do we have a translator?
Prosecutor:	Uh... actually, we have no Gaelic translators handy, your honor.
Judge:	Well, how can he understand the charges?
Counsel:	Well, your honor, that may not be necessary.
	You see, we have objections to the indictment.
Judge:	And, what would those be?
Counsel:	Well...
	First, the indictment does not specify the species of snake alleged to have been destroyed, as required by the Act.
	Second, the alleged destruction occurred some 1500 years ago – well beyond any applicable statute of limitations.
	And, third, the alleged destruction occurred on the Isle of Eire. With all due respect, your honor, this Court has no jurisdiction.
Judge:	What is the government’s response?
Prosecutor:	Well, your honor, we.. uh....
	To tell the truth, your honor, I am unprepared to respond. After all, aren’t we are the mere fictive imaginings of the Author of this transcript – a despotic Author at that.
	He’s capriciously placed us, here, without any means or resource to respond to your honor – as if you existed, at all.
Judge:	Counsel –
	I didn’t ask for your theosophical ruminations – just a simple response to the objections. And, hearing none, I have no choice but to quash the indictment and let this curious fellow go free.
St. Patrick:	Biochas le Dia!
Paddy:	[standing up in the gallery]
	Bless you, your Honor! Bless you! Ye’ve done the right ting!
Judge:	Sir, are you involved in this matter?
Paddy:	Well, I’d say so.
	Isn’t Padraig me own first cousin twice removed? Sure, he’s a saint if ever there was. And, amn’t I named for himself?
Judge:	Well, sir, I fail to see how you are involved, and I would ask you to sit down.
Paddy:	Ah, sure I will, your honor.
	But, wasn’t your decision pure Solomonic? I mean, not like, cuttin’ the babe in two, like. But, sure, that wasn’t the point was it. No, Solomon knew the story, just like yourself, your Honor.
Judge:	Bailiff, please escort this gentleman from the courtroom.
Paddy:	[being led out]
	May the road rise to meet ye, your Honor! May the sun....
	[transcript ends]

Poor Relations: St. Valentine's Day

Girl, sure it's been ages since we've talked.

Ah, it has -- donkey's years.  And, how's things?

Oh, grand, grand. And yourself?

Grand.  And, did ye know that today's St. Valentines Day?

Well, sure, every day's a feast for some saint or another.

'Tis, but ya know, St. Valentine's day's special, like, the patron saint of love, an' all.

Love is it?  Sure, I had it marked down for Saints Cyril & Methodius, an' all.

Well, sure, them too, but it first belonged to St. Valentine, long 'go. 

Did it?  Well, I'll put him down as well -- but, ya know, I don't tink Cyril or Methodius 're young snappers.  It's not like dey just showed up last week.

No, not at tall.  Sure, dey've been 'round for millenia an' all.  But, I wonder, did Himself bring ye some roses or sweets, like, for Valentines?

Himself?  Sweets an' roses?  Divil a one, girl.  St. Valentine preserve us, but I'd 've been in a feirce state a shock if he had.  Sure, I'd be lucky to get a "top o' mornin' to ye" from the likes of him -- he saves that blarney for tourists when they come 'round.  Then, he'll sing a bit a "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" -- that sort a ting.  Sure, the Yanks love it.

Ah, they do, they do.

But, Himself,... saints, he's a great lump of a man.  Why, it's 5 bells this mornin' and your man's still snorin' in the scratcher, an' isn't Brigid bellowin' in the barn to be milked?  Sure, I gave him a good kick and said, "Get up now and do your duty.  Poor Brigid's gettin' ready to burst." 

Now, I taught you sold the cows when you did the IPO?

Ah, we did, we did.  But, we kept Brigid for a bit a cream for the tea. 

Good tinkin'.  Well, the day's not over girl.  Maybe he'll rise to the occasion. 

Ah, sure, that'd be a gift ... an' miracles never cease.

And, sure, he's still a fine figure of a man.

He is, at that.

Fat Chance

Gentle visitors, in recent posts, we have encouraged you, again and again, to give fat a chance.  Now, on the veritable feast day of fat, we make our final appeal for largeness of heart.

Consider what one would choose against fat -- for the opposite of fat is thin.  The very word conjures images of gauntness, or of a gruel and the most cold and scant of same. 

Worse still is another opposite of fat: lean. 

"Lean" suggests a slight inclination -- a kind of waffling uncertainty or insecurity, a faintness, a lack of conviction and passion -- as against "stout", which denotes solidity and steadfastness, inured to fatigue or hardships, firmness of purpose, as well as a strong very dark heavy-bodied ale made from pale malt and roasted unmalted barley and (often) caramel malt with hops. 

One no more longs for the "lean years" than one finds a man "lean and happy."  Otherwise, we would never have the fortune of sharing in a largess; rather, we would be picking through the meager scraps of a smalless.

Friends, we are about to embark on the season of Lent.  During this period, your humble Contributor is noted for his ascetic practices -- a fact of which he is duly proud.  On any given Lenten day, he may be seen consuming a few thimbles of lukewarm tap water, a stale crust of bread, and, perhaps, the odd parsnip.  But, note, that he will be foregoing fat for a noble reason, not out of some frail fear of fat.

Therefore, gentle visitors, subject to the discipline of Lenten observance, a few words of admonishment.  Don't fear; don't worry; be happy.

Whistlepig In Winter

I am the lonely Whistlepig.
In Fall, a gen'rous hole I dig,
Then crawl inside and hunker down,
While snow and ice fall all around.

I drowse away the topside freeze
'Til winter's grip begins to ease,
Then rouse myself to creep upstairs,
To see about the world's affairs.

I am the sole appointed judge
Of when the frosty stuff will budge:
Six weeks to go, if there be sun;
But, much less so, if there be none.

And, having made my tunnelled run,
Why, then, my lonely job is done.

Blast From The Past

Gentle visitors, as it is, once again, the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, we offer, once again, this exemplar of his logic from a rare text tentatively attributed to that great saint and scholar.

On The Feast of St. Alexandra

If I could render a fitting chant, or even mantra,

It would be, "Hail to thee, Sant' Alexandra!"

Columb/us or /a?

Gentle visitors, your humble Contributor, distracted for a moment from the heaving sheaves of papyrus that oppress him -- overwhelm him even -- from day to everlasting day, happened to glance  at a calendar of the Gregorian fashion and noticed that today was the real Columbus Day. 

Remember, the day in 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, etc?  It seems as good a day as any to stir the unproductive writer within and shake his long-wordless post.

And, how could we let this day pass without noting our Italian friends, who have been pressed by the scandalous diversifiers of our age to defend their Columbian forebear.  Sons of Italy, take heart!  We stand with you.

This would probably not be the ideal moment, however, to note that Columba, who predated Columbus by -- oh, say, a thousand years -- has a closer link to the discovery of the New World than Chris.

Columba -- saint that he was -- associated with other saints of his day.  In those days (and, of course, in all days since), Ireland had many saints.   And, among Columba's sainted mates was Brendan the Navigator, later to be named the patron saint of the U.S. Navy.   

Doubtless, Brendan ambled the shore of what would become New Jersey and found it to be in a garden state.   Modest and Irish as he was, Brendan did not make a big fuss over it -- in fact, he appears to have embellished the tale of his journey in order to obscure his own greatness.   (The fabulousness of it is treated at some length by one of your humble Contributor's own alleged forebears.) 

Just as today, an Irishman would praise Italian cooking as much as he would downplay the little-known but other-worldly delights of an Irish board, far be it from an Irishman to displace a great Italian on his day (except to set the record gently straight).

ciao...

The Day That Dares Not Speak Its Name

Eve surveyed the sad crowd gathered in her living room.    Her friend, Holly, had told her of a similar, strange funk that had overcome her guests this time last year.  But, this group -- the local chapter of the International Optimist Society -- had always been lively, upbeat, and, well, optimistic.

"I must say," said Eve.  "I am surprised and even disappointed at the pall all 'round.  What on earth's the trouble?"

Yul stared at the remaining crumbs of Buche on his plate.  "Nothing to do with you Eve -- everything was delightful -- it just seems so dark and cold outside, and everything's so troubling.  We've nothing left to celebrate."

"I suppose there's always the Saturnalia,"  offered Felice, scraping glumly at the plum pudding.

"But, that's so Third Century," said Noel, cracking the shell of another warm chestnut.

"My point exactly," said Yul, "I mean the whole pagan thing was fun for a while.  But, have you seen the cost of Druid outfits these days."

"Well," said Eve, "Perhaps, we might make our own celebration.   Something imbued with light and warmth."

"Capital thought Eve,"  said Kris, knocking back another wassail.  "It should be festive, but filled with meaning."

"I'd second that," exclaimed Joy, reflecting the gathering enthusiasm.  "We might have an emphasis on peace -- a truce to all strife." 

"Yes," added Natalie, "A theme of renaissance -- a season of new birth and of salving and healing." 

"Quite right Nat," said Nick, raising his grog of nog in toast, "And, a season of giving."

"But, what would we call this celebration?" asked Eve.  The whole room grew quiet; Yul scratching his bald pate; Noel rubbing his beard; Natalie folding her arms in thought.

Just then, there was soft knock at the door.  Eve quickly opened it. 

"Why Yusef and Meri!  Come in.  I'm so glad you made it -- we're puzzling over the name for a new day of celebration -- we could use your bright ideas.  Goodness Meri, you must be due at any moment."