The Christmas Program

Gobble down dinner
Have to shower and
Prepare for departure
The return to the
Strangely unfamiliar
Classrooms of evening
Where wire-hanger
Wings and halos
Are fashioned
With tinsel and care
And Middle Eastern
Ensembles designed
Using all available
Pile-filled towels and
Faded sheets
Where dyed cotton balls
Become woolly beards,
Doll babies that cried
And peed become
Substitutes for a Savior

And we sing
Our hearts out
In fear of Mrs. North's
Constant companion,
The busy ruler
Quick to thwack
Inattentive boys and girls
With a focusing rap
On the tentative hands or
Dancing legs
Offered up for
Reluctant communion
With the corrective
Twelve inches

We sing,
Angels we have heard
On high,
Sweetly singing
O'er the plains
And the answer
In reply...
Glo-o-ria en excelsius deo
The high notes breathy
Clear and true
We sing out of
Love for Baby Jesus
And to have sips of
Sugary punch and the
Gigantic chunks of Entemann's
Butter pound cake
Provided by the PTA
For afterwards

When we
Are through
And all the mommies
And daddies and
Grandmas and uncles
And an older brother
Or two
Mill around,
Chatting with the
Exhausted teachers,
Family members
Still beaming
With pride
Because we,
Part of the
Angelic host
Had remembered
To say our very
Important lines
Right on time,
Holding out our hands
Towards the beveled
Church ceiling
With its Gothic arches,
With the
Twinkling
Golden chandeliers
To proclaim,
"And behold
A virgin shall conceive
And shall bear a Son
And His name
Shall be called
Jesus"