Dear Reader,
Every year, without fail, a few days after Christmas, discarded trees line the streets of NYC, their pine needles strewn across the sidewalk leaving the sad bare branches to shiver in the winter wind. A sadness fills the air. The merriment is over and the cold march of winter goes before us dark and unforgiving.
The Christmas tree discarded on the side of the road is a tragic picture of our self-induced consumerism—out with the old, the useless, the ill timed and in with the new, the bright, and whatever happens to be in vogue. This relentless cycle seems never ending and if consumer reports are to be believed, are indicative of a culture dissatisfied with what they consider ancient, archaic, and trivial.
Of course, I had to write a poem. After Christmas pauses to consider our festivities from the perspective of that discarded tree. A tree, who by no fault but circumstance, found itself in our living rooms only to be quickly shown the door. This tree is a reminder of our desperate desire to consume and hopefully will cause us to consider how we treat those things we so casually deem useless.
Happy New Year and a Blessed Epiphany!
-Ryan
AFTER CHRISTMAS
Just two weeks after Christmas
and the pines are piled high.
Gaia's daughters hacked into
neat little knobs just wide enough
to fit in a New York apartment.
Like a cheap date she was
wined, dined, and dressed up fine.
But that was last week,
when her raiment was fresh
and her hair danced with starlight,
before she began to shed
and her boughs began to droop.
This week, she's naked on the curbside
wondering where it all went wrong,
and hoping those men in jumpsuits
are kind enough to drive her home. 