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from Paul and the Hertelendy Family |
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A CHRISTMAS PLEA
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Every year you send a thoughtful gift at high velocity
Reflecting your devotion, kinship, generosity.
But this time, I implore,
Forget the traffic, wrapping, crowds--- that year-end chore.
Instead, I’d love a check donation
Bound for this or some more distant nation.
Aid the victims and survivors by the million!
Light up nights with torches of your charity brilliant
In this crazy tragic year
Unleashing ruin more than I could bear,
Like droughts, and quakes,
And hurricanes and flooding lakes,
Apart from devastating warfare for elusive stakes.
This plea’s for poor
so desperate for care,
Requesting help they know not where,
The jobless, homeless, sick and frozen,
Refugees that nature’s wrath so ruthlessly has chosen.
I yearn to help the fisherman without a catch, now on the rocks,
The widow who had lost her ox,
The dad alone surviving killer inundation,
Children running from a conflagration,
Shivering families just laid off,
Devoid of home, or food, or information.
All of them, our relatives of one world family tree
We need to help.
The next time, friend, it could be thee, or me.
---An older poem updated,
more apt than ever
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