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The man that you see before you
with nary a cent to his name
is a wanderer of the pitiable sort
with nothing and no one to claim.
He had once journeyed forth with a purpose:
to find himself, once and for all.
But now he can tell you at the end of his thread
How he lost ear to that wild goose’s call.

After gathering what money I had,
leaving family and friends far behind,
for a year I rode all over the map –
‘Cross oceans and vast countryside.
Still it evades me! My reason for living
and finding some worth past the plain.
No person, experience, product or passport
justifies being undefined’s pain.
Now Christmas lies brightly before us
with most of you cozy at home
while I trudge on through the snow and the cold
with no set direction to roam.
Trudging on and on through this bittermost storm
I feel all muscles slowly contract
As the seizing of warmth and despair in the air
Shows me just how much life I have lacked.

In the midst of these lamentations
and my eyelids freezing fast-shut,
my ears picked up the faintest of jingles –
Was it ice tumbling round in my gut?
No, that jingling grew louder and louder –
gained a beat and a crisp melody –
then, like a hundred hearths alighting at once,
a bonfire burst through the trees!
I emerged twixt the barks of the wood
to be greeted by laughter and cheers
from a caravan of Romanichal Gypsies
decked out from their toes to their ears
in hand-woven ornamental dresses and cloaks
spun with thread red, silver, and gold
that whirled with the snow as they jigged a bright contra
and fiddled a carol of old.
Tambourines jingled in tandem
with clarinets and a grand cimbalom
that was warmed by the presence of three blazing fires
and toys that smelled sweetly embalmed.
Their vardos encircled a clearing –
the one I stumbled upon –
And the pine in the middle that invited their orbit
shone warm like some frosted sun
with waxing candles perched on its limbs
that pulsed with the heart of the wood –
I was suddenly overwhelmed with feelings of Christmas
And wanted to join, if I could.

I did not. I sat on the edge
overlooking their festivities
and puzzled at how they found so much joy
in our own aimless nativity
at the end of a year bleak with misfortune
what purpose gave them motivity?

A child in the dress of her elders
must have spied the troubles in me,
for she twirled her way over and sat down besides
with an offering of tarts and hot tea.
“I’ll teach you to dance, if you are too scared
To get off your butt and join in.”
“No, little girl, though I know not the moves
it’s the moment I just can’t quite pin.
Christmas reminds me how lost I am
with no family or home of my own –
I can always return, they’d be happy to have me
But they’ll see just how little I’ve grown.”

The child sliced the tart into two,
sipped cinnamon tea with a smile,
looped her arm right through mine
Then dragged me off quick in rank file!
She laughed as we were swept up
in the maddening fervor of dance
as I stumbled over my two far-left feet
and bungled each toe-spinning stance.
I had barely time to react
to the faces that offered support
when I noticed that some were not quite all-there
as I tripped through them but spared their rapport.
Were they ghosts? Was I dead? Did I finally collapse
from a lack of clear-driven aims?
Before me danced shades, tricks of the light…
Though they shared faces, bodies, and names.
The child laughed at my gape. “Do not be afraid,
these are not ghosts, as you say,
but the manifestations of what we might be
should we choose one of infinite ways.
Christmas is a time to find fresh beginnings
from what has once been and is now –
but what we could be or what might have been
tricks us into making a vow:
That every step we are to direct
must be towards our future, truest potential,
an image without which we mistakenly think
saps our lives of what is essential.
Tonight’s Christmas Eve, tomorrow the Day –
Our very best time is right now!”
She sang ‘We Three Kings’ with three of herself
and twirled with her clan underbough.

I watched them all move, content as can be
to hold their futures in hand –
for richer or poorer, in sickness or health,
knowing did not damper the band.
Though I spied amidst them no shade of my own
and am not certain I could handle the chance
I realized my heart still felt twenty pounds lighter
And my feet had picked up the dance.
The gypsies’ jingle lasted the night
and we felt no sweat on our skin
as we joined arm and arm with these ghosts of the future
and lauded the tree’s natural trim
when, all a sudden, with a blow from the West,
the candles perched on its stretching limbs
went out all at once to hearken the sun –
and shades vanished to let us begin.

The caravan loaded, their Christmas Eve packed,
snow gently starting to fall,
the glitter of morning struck me with glory
and my self of last night felt so small.
The child and her band offered a ride
whithersoever they go
since on this journey we all might be wandering
and companions help smooth ebb and flow –
But this Christmas has taught me to not be afraid
when some years I am prone to wander
for so long as you know just where you are now
next Christmas might smile a bit fonder.
I gave them a wave as the horses trudged off
from that Christmas Eve pine, now dimmed,
then I turned back around towards an Austrian town
and hummed to myself a small hymn
as the bells pealed out over frost-blessed land
from some nearby old-fashioned steeple
as I thought over the Christmas I spent
dancing with that festive people
and how one child could tell that the Spirits of Christmas
leave not when the season has done –
and that, if we feel lost, or we’re just trudging on,
perhaps we’ve not quite yet begun.

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