THE REWARD

(A Christmas Poem)

I’m giving you so much more

Than a gift today.

I’m giving you

Your just reward.

This is your reward

For loving me

Into being.

This is your reward

For letting me smile

Into your eyes

And cry

Upon your shoulder.

This is something

You deserve

For letting me

Into your life.

Consider this

Your just desserts

For making me

Feel so good.

There are more ways

To tell you

What you already know

Is true.

I expect nothing

In return

Except to love you as long

As the world turns.

This is your reward.

This is my reward.

The Polar Express and Me: An Anniversary

Every year since Chris Van Allsburg's book The Polar Express was published in 1985, the book has been read aloud either by my father or by me on Christmas Eve night. Tonight marked the 25th time this has been done. I only pull the book out once a year, on this night. The need to do this seeps into me gently, like an angel spreading her loving kindness throughout my being.

I know there are recordings of the book, read by the likes of William Hurt and Liam Neeson. I know there is a rather prominent film of The Polar Express that was directed by Robert Zemeckis and starred Tom Hanks, or more accurately, his computerized likeness. I daren't see the film or hear any other voice read the book. To do so would allow the magic I feel every year to be polluted, and then disappear completely. The Polar Express, as I understand it, is a sacred entertainment.

Van Allsburg writes of the most magical sound in the world: "the ringing bells of Santa's sleigh". The sound it makes is entirely what you imagine it to be. To me, it is a sound not of this world, but a celestial, ethereal trill. And all who believe in Santa Claus hear the sound and lock it away, in the safest place in their hearts. As adults, we get jaded, we get cynical about Christmas. The two worst words a child can hear, at least in my view, are "Christmas Shopping". When a child hears those words, Christmas stops being about what it was meant to be. It becomes about buying the shiniest diamond, the biggest television, making the best ham or baked Alaska. A child deserves so many Christmases, unchecked by worldly concerns and anguishes.

"Though I've grown old, " Van Allsburg concludes his book, "The bell rings for me as it does for all who truly believe." If I'm still reading his masterpiece twenty-five years after its publication, a very strong case could be made that I believe in Santa Claus. And I believe I always will.

Do You Realize...

Ladies and Gentlemen, do you realize:

--that by one report, tickets for Friday night's NBA Game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden cost as much as $79,000? I'll bet there's at least one person who leveraged his child's college tuition so that he could smell LeBron James' B.O.. Isn't that sad?

--that more people will attend this year's Super Bowl in that monument to Jerry Jones' ego outside Dallas than live in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Cape Coral, Florida or Albany, New York? Or that more people have been murdered in Chicago this year--412--than live in its suburb of Arlington?

--that for every McDonald's in the U.S., there are as many as three Barnes & Noble employees?

--that Donald Trump's net worth ($2 billion) is more than the gross national product of American Samoa ($575.3 million)?

--that there are only 121 more inmates on death row in every prison in America than there are residents of the Falkland Islands?

--that neither our current President or Vice President served in any military capacity prior to assuming office, and both men are attorneys? (In fairness, Vice President Biden was reclassified as ineligible by the Selective Service, as he had asthma as a teenager.)

--that on average, 642, 000 people watch ESPN and ESPN2 every day combined--88 million people every month. That's nearly double the amount that watch Lifetime on average per day.

--that a week ago, five days before the basketball game I mentioned before, the great opera star Renee Fleming gave a recital at Chicago's Lyric Opera House, where she has accepted a position as an artistic consultant. The show sold out; the top ticket price to see Fleming's voice soar like an angel's: $149.

Just some brain food for you to chew on...

To The Back of Beyond

Nothing will happen to you;
no harm will come.
Nothing you have to do
That I haven't already done.

Just take my hand
and close your eyes.
Smile, that you might
not cry.

I want to take you
to the ends of the earth;
to the back of beyond.

Where there are no limits,
where laws of gravity
and laws in general
are mere words.

Come with me to where
the grass dances freely
and the flowers smile at you.

We've seen too much decay,
destruction and death
for our hearts to be
troubled anew.

This is the back of beyond,
where we renew,
rejuvenate and restore.

This is a place
I wish we could stay
forevermore.

At least until you
feel the yank
of this weary sphere.

Never fear.
The back of beyond
is always here.

MIGHTY MEN OF NEWS

Gone are the Murrows

The Cronkites and the Hollenbecks.

Absent are the Garroways,

Huntleys, Brinkleys.

Ditto the Chancellors and Brokaws.

Never to return are the

Reasoners, Jenningses and Downses.

These Mighty Men of News,

Who disturbed the air and

Chiseled stone

In the Discharge of

Their sacred and Holy Duty.

In their place

Are skywriters.

The void of Information

Is filled by Complaint,

Debate and Spite.

Men who used to speak

Are replaced by men

Who scream and shout.

Our televisions are now

But wires and lights

In a box

Failing to maintain a spark.

And I weep

For what we

Have become.

JOUST

In a dank and deserted castle
Under a steel grey sky
There is a fight
Between two knights.

One wears black.
The other sports white.
The soul of a man awaits
The winner of the fight.

The white knight
Represents all
That is good and sweet,
Joyful and right.

And the man in black,
Always on the attack
With a sword sharper
Than the toughest tack.

The castle they fight in,
The soul they fight for,
Is inside the man
Moving this pen.

The battle never ends.
The fight goes ever on.
No truces are called for;
No judge to say who won.

I think every one has
A castle worth fighting for.

There’s a white and a black
Knight inside everyone.

It’s a truth that’s hard
To ignore.

Bookstore

Poking through a bookstore,

Wondering which book

To behold

And buy.

Envious of the authors

Who get it all down

Before the parade

Passes by.

They must lead rich

And full and creative

Lives.

The magic in their pages

Pierces my heart

Like tiny knives.

Knowing I could jump

Into any story

I wanted to

Leaves me breathless

Dizzy and agog.

It’s true.

Such a tough decision—

Which book is

The best?

Who’s got more magic

In their words

Than the rest?

Such mystery and

Majesty and magic

Await.

At the bookstore.

If the prices aren’t

Too great.