For the first time in seven years, no invitation
Was given to me to join a friend or a family in celebration.
Now too, my best friend Brian is gone, and his dreadful fate
Has left me alone to suffer mine, now more in need of other friends.
Every year I, and then Brian and I, were invited; this year, that ends.
Always I've had even several invitations, or at least a few.
This year, no one thought of me to invite me,
Though probably it is terribly true
That this will likely be the last Christmas for me.
Cancer still clutches me with its dread spread; perhaps
My friends no longer can bear me as I have become.
But I still love life and all the moments that still must elapse--
Moments now that tower for me with the last time mine,
That I may see the bright lights of the celebration of life shine:
If this is not my last living Christmas, maybe the last I can enjoy.
I hope that isn't so; but now, my deep declines, and the pain
Tell me that all my moons of time are on the wane.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I know that Christmas is often denounced, as commercial.
My view is, the Christmas season and the Winter Solstice season,
Christmas, is one of those times being a bit commercial is good.
Buy those Christmas trees and decorate them well;
Let the Christmas tree lights, steady or blinking,
Lift up our spirits, and humanize our thinking.
Buy those Hanukkah lights, and set their shine
To illuminate present life with the precious life of former time.
Let light tell the story of life succeeding and living,
And celebrate it in a time of loving and giving.
A bit commercial, yes--but buy those presents, and give them.
Let this season sparkle with giving loving gifts, till the sun shall dim.
The Festival of Lights springs deep from the human heart.
The Menorah is as beautiful as the aurora borealis.
Those eight lights plus one shed light that speaks the gift of life.
And as for the beautified Christmas tree, it too speaks from depth.
It tells a story that springs like life-giving water from a hidden well.
Stir the spirit of the love of life and light, and let it tell
The tale of the rising of a living tree--symbolically representing
The human hope to live again--from the ashes of a burned Yule log.
Let all the tales and myths of mankind, feeling our way in the fog,
Be respected as the search for truth and hope, no less than science.
Science is more successful only because it focuses just
On those questions and quests the mind can explore and penetrate.
The spirit of life is still great, though unable to prove our fate--
The spirit's searchlights seek hope, beaming from dreaming dust.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Scholarly search and research has found
Many Pagan patches in the celebrations we know.
Some say that makes them wrong or unsound;
And that we should shun such customs as from a hateful foe.
Yet Pagans were human beings, with hopes and fears;
Their prayers also were offered with sorrow and tears,
In an honest hope to speak to some kind and caring Power,
That might deign to help them in their loss, sorrow, and last hour.
If they made errors in names of God, and numbers of gods,
Was this evil--or blind groping in the dark, for true light hoping.
Some regard Pagans as enemies of true religion;
Though they also thought they had religion that was true.
And who can say they did not have parts of all our human truth?
And even some parts of the great cosmic truth, too?
Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself"; I believe we each
Are made in God's image, each of us with our own "I am" within.
The enthusiasm of life; En Theos: God within.  And so we reach.
But do you still think of Pagans as enemies?  Then recall:
Jesus also said: "Love your enemies."  Humanity includes all.
So I hope that God will accept all offers of prayer as being meant
For the true God, no matter to what name or number sent--
Still intended to find the mind and ear of the true Power there,
Hoping to find in that Power an understanding love and care.
Hoping so, I too offer up my prayer.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
So I brush away all objections to the season's commercialization,
And I will find excessive commercializing elsewhere.
To me, this season is one of the jewels of civilization.
Even a socialist knows that jewels cost money.
And as for the objections to Pagan influence, I say:
Those Pagans sure knew how to celebrate!
They knew how to brighten up a dismal day.
And what did they celebrate, really?  The deep human hopes:
The triumph of life over death; the return of the life-giving rays
Of the sun that God shaped for us, to shine on all our living days.
And as for Easter, the Summer Solstice--they celebrated
The return of the green living Spring,
Life pushing back death for a time, to grant us the gift of everything.
And also, once again,
The hope of new good life somehow after this life's death,
Hoping our spirit shall prove more than mere mortal breath.
So I say Yes to all such celebrations, and I celebrate them all.
Even if I sometimes have to celebrate alone,
In the enclosing closet of my heart.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I love to be in the company of friends, during holiday times.
But nothing lasts forever; I must accept falling out of tendered grace,
As also I must face the falling away from me of the world--
And my fall, after much more coming suffering, out of time.
A sad contemplative Christmas for me, today.
Yet part of me will still be glad--
With memories of my life that stir so freely and suddenly now--
Of all the good gifts and blessings that I had.
And also of the ones that I still have.
That too will be part of my contemplation,
And in my heart I still have celebration.

==============================
Written by Michael LP, aka PoetWithCancer
aka (thanks to my dear friend, Luna Marie) Mr. Poet
Written on Sunday, December 25, 2011  7:44 AM PST
36 degrees F.   Humidity: 35%   Forecast: overcast
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael LP.  All rights reserved
(Copyrighted for my estate)