Poem of the Day from the Library of Congress

[Sara]

The Library of Congress here has a service where they will email you a poem a day. I thought I might starting posting them here.

The first one is a bit morbid and touching.

The Death of Santa Claus
by Charles Webb

He's had the chest pains for weeks,
but doctors don't make house
calls to the North Pole,

he's let his Blue Cross lapse,
blood tests make him faint,
hospital gown always flap

open, waiting rooms upset
his stomach, and it's only
indigestion anyway, he thinks,

until, feeding the reindeer,
he feels as if a monster fist
has grabbed his heart and won't

stop squeezing. He can't
breathe, and the beautiful white
world he loves goes black,

and he drops on his jelly belly
in the snow and Mrs. Claus
tears out of the toy factory

wailing, and the elves wring
their little hands, and Rudolph's
nose blinks like a sad ambulance

light, and in a tract house
in Houston, Texas, I'm 8,
telling my mom that stupid

kids at school say Santa's a big
fake, and she sits with me
on our purple-flowered couch,

and takes my hand, tears
in her throat, the terrible
news rising in her eyes."

from Reading The Water
2001 Northeastern University Press
Copyright 2001 by Charles Webb.
All rights reserved.

[[deleted user]]

Thanks Sara. It's quite clever, but I went from being in a buoyant mood to having the feels. :(

[[deleted user]]

The power to ruin childhood memories. :(

(Lol!)

[[deleted user]]

That's your call, Jamielynn. I don't think it does any harm allowing kids to believe, but I certainly can't see any problem in being honest with your own kids.

[Barbara]

Sara wrote: "The Library of Congress here has a service where they will email you a poem a day. I thought I might starting posting them here.

The first one is a bit morbid and touching.

The Death of Santa Cla..."

Wow - seems like a great service, but it'd also be one more thing to get me off task :)