Crimson Tide

CRIMSON TIDE

It's Christmas,
and all the children are awed and hushed
by the crystalline pain
found in the faces of Christ
on all those ivory and gold crucifixes
hanging everywhere.

Each year under aluminum trees,
scented with fir spray,
on a day linked somehow
to the Germanic St. Nicolaus
and the Tannenbaum,
and the snows of Scandinavia,
as well as the sands of Judea;
and to shepherds in rags
with their sheep and goats and spindle-legged camels,
and to kings and angels and wise men
in their bright clean silks
standing in dung,
bringing shiny gold
to lay at the feet of a silent babe
whose mother shivers in the straw,
feeling cold and weak
in the darkness
with the strangers.

Santa Claus cracks a cruel whip
and magical reindeer from Lapland,
freshly castrated
by the teeth of unblushing virgins,
defy gravity
and pull a huge silver sled
across the skies of the world.

Jolly Santa always wears a red suit,
fringed with white ermin,
stretched over his girth like the skin
on a German sausage;
the white of the polar caps,
the red of blood;
the red of revolutions,
of poppies, wounds, and flags,
and of the Christ;
his hot blood
that priests drink.

The identical crimson stuff
poured into jeweled goblets,
and raked into the yellow baked earth
of the Roman arenas
on that same day
before his birth and after,
when men were prodded with hot irons
to do battle with other men
and with beasts;
while from their own crosses
some could see
the steel meathooks
attached to plumed braying donkeys
dragging the corpses of the cowardly
and the fallen
out the Porta Libitina;
no bellicus
on their blackend bleeding lips,
no prayers,
as the holiday crowds sat peeling grapes
and waving handkerchiefs.

Yes, the children are thankful
for the birthday of Jesus,
and it is hard for them to understand
that Christ was flesh,
and St. Nick was Nordic lore
gone commercially berserk.

For they can hear the bells,
squeeze their presents,
chew their chocolate,
and dream their dreams,
and they have been told
repeatedly
that on this special day
the poor are always given
bread.


Glenn Buttkus December 1967