POEM: “December” by Ernest Noyes Brookings

DECEMBER
by Ernest Noyes Brookings

December twelfth month of the year
Date my eighty-fifth birthday will be the twelfth
Either twentieth or twenty-first start winter clear
Normally unless detrimental have excellent health

At a local residential family home
Dad to mother — enough gifts for the tree?
She — yes, but the kids like to roam
During when God’s natural beauty is visibly free

Dad — let’s go purchase lights and trimmings
After return they were applied to the tree
After when the tree was filled with trimmings
The gifts were visible to all free

Gifts distributed as per name
A large variety — clothes, cards and toys
All perfect, some were the same
In addition to parents, girls and boys

After receipt all happy and gay
Joined mutually in Christmas songs
In addition Dad did pray
Dear God bless our gifts with no tongs.

This poem was first published in Duplex Planet #54, 1984. More on Brookings can be found at Duplex Planet. This month, all Duplex Planet orders come with a free Brookings book of matches (with his poem “Fire” printed on it). And if you order any Duplex Planet CD, you will also receive a free copy of “Outstandingly Ignited: Lyrics by Ernest Noyes Brookings, Volume 4.” Tell ’em Nippertown sent ya.