by Erik Berg

“Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!”
Are the many cries of women and men.
Added to this Christmas score is the snow crunching under sleighs
This simple day making people forget their differences, pretend to be kin.
Whoops of merriment express happiness in simple joys.
Smiles are wide across the faces of men hurrying home.
Snow flies back and forth, thrown by excited girls and boys.
No one has any time to wander or roam.

Indulgent thoughts of abundant meals fill everyone’s brain.
Laughter is everywhere like millions of calm trickling streams.
The amount of enthusiasm created by a day seems almost insane.
Everyone wishes another luck and beams.
The streets as in Venice overflow with water-like love
Not just held within relations but shared amongst the world.
This charity from such a simple thing must have been a miracle from above.
All virtue has been thrown together and, into one, swirled.

Brick houses painted with wintry white envelope the flooding cheer.
One particular house, two stories, with a wide window that faces the mirth
Houses a man who, to the kids and the adults, is dear.
Using his inspiration the observant man waters his seed newly earthed.
As the man looks out, from behind his desk, upon the snowy wonderland
The mechanisms in his head clicking rapidly
In his mind an idea has been planned:
A lonely, angry man amidst this caring community is what he can see.

His brain continues to turn, and ink is put to paper.
In his visions he begins to disrupt the world outside with his grumpy creation
And he is slowly becoming a molder and shaper.
His character deepens to more than just a man that is vexed and impatient.
He writes like a mad man his hand hardly able to keep up.
But his images are interrupted by knocking on the glass by some tots.
He smiles and just as he is to go and see what’s about, he is called to sup.
“Chuck! Chuck! Come now before your food gets cold, or rots!”