Rudolph's Christmas

What is Christmas
Without some good old carols?

So, tapping my feet and wriggling my shoulders,
Heartily I sang
That ever-popular Christmas song of Santa’s favourite
Red-nosed reindeer, Rudolph.

“Then all the reindeer loved him,”
…
Then? Only then did all the reindeer love him?
Only when Santa chose Rudolph with his nose so bright
To guide his sleigh that night?

Vanished like vapour my cheery carolling chirp,
And ‘stead spouted a sweep of fury.
Bullied, discriminated, isolated,
All because Rudolph was not of the pack,
Different of features, not dank and dull?

Christmas! Harbinger of joy, giving and loving,
Do you claim back the gifts you bestow on humanity
When the trees are down and the notes of music fade?
Is that why reindeer packs of the nose so dull
Gather again to laugh and call names at
The Rudolph of low vision
And the Rudolph of blue spectrum?

Christmas, don’t go yet, please don’t leave… but stay on.
Stay on, so that the glittery fairy dust of sharing and caring
You sprinkle upon us in the last month of the year
Does not turn into bland sand when comes the turn.
Stay on, so that mute Rudolph can have a say,
While taking a victory stride with his lame-of-leg Rudolph pal.
Stay on, Christmas, and help Miss.Rudolph toss away
Fear of suppression and unfairness of treatment
So she might, with pride, flaunt her womanly strength.
Stay on, and give a shoulder to devastated Rudolph
Struggling at the line of poverty to find hope and happiness
In the abundance of gratitude.

But, most of all, stay on, Christmas, for young Rudolph,
Whose tender heart nasty friendlessness has wrecked,
Stay on to heal, befriend, love,
Oversee that it is not laughed at but laughed with
As, in all the reindeer games, Rudolph joins and plays with glee.
Vidya Shankar
Written for a poetry competition themed 'Christmas is All About...' hosted by Poetry 24/7
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