Last updated: December 25. 2013 4:45PM - 889 Views
BART MILLS info@limanews.com

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Not so long ago, not too far away

there was a young writer

(or “young,” so he’d say),

who, over the years, had forged a tradition,

a custom of sorts — maybe even a mission,

of drafting a poem for one special reason.

That reason, you guessed, is the holiday season.


Each Christmas, our writer would craft a few lines

of meter and verse of faux-Seusian rhyme,

detailing the changes that came with the year

and the antics of those whom he held oh-so dear.

Each poem was special, each one a delight

Like a snowflake aflutter on Christmas Eve night.

(The writer, by now you can certainly see

was given to such fits of hyperbole).


The poem tradition, it lasted for years

Until the year came that it didn’t appear

That’s the year that our writer, in a moment of loss

Sent the wrong column in to his newspaper boss.


“My piece runs on Thursday,” he explained to his wife.

“It been that way most of my writerly life.

But with Christmas on Wednesday, I lost track of the date

and now any poem, it would run a day late.

A Christmas poem running on 12-26?

Just thinking about it is making me sick.”


“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” the poor wife chimed in.

“Maybe, just maybe, it’s not such a sin,

to offer a poem a day or too late.

I’m sure anything that you write will be great.

Well it might even be that the readers don’t care,

that they won’t even miss this poetic affair.”


“Won’t miss it?” he riled, “why that’s just insane.

To not read my poem would bring them great pain.

How else would they know all the fun things we do,

or hear of the antics of Mills 1 and Mills 2.

Why to skip on the poem would crush a tradition

and put me in quite an unseemly position.”


Well, the writer’s wife knew that when he started ranting

it was best not to say things that may need recanting,

and that making a point, no matter how truthful,

could only result in a battle less fruitful.

So she just shook her head and fed him a line.

“I’m sure that whatever you write will be fine.”


So our writer debated a day and a night

until he eventually sat down to write,

and came up with a compromise column of sorts,

one to please both the pickers of nit, and the sports

who would happily look past the day and the date

(and even ignore that that rhyming’s not great).

And finally, our writer was able to say,

“Thank you for reading, and Merry Christmas,


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