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Every year you send a thoughtful gift at
high velocity
Reflecting your devotion, kinship, generosity.
But this time, I implore,
Forget the traffic, wrapping, crowds---that year-end chore.
Instead, I’d love a check donation
Bound for this or some more distant nation.
Aid the victims and survivors by the million!
Light up nights with torches of your charity brilliant
In this crazy storm-racked year
Unleashing tragedies far more than I could bear,
Like droughts, tsunamis, quakes,
And hurricanes and flooding lakes,
Apart from devastating warfare for elusive stakes.
This plea’s for poor so desperate for care,
Requesting help they know not where,
The homeless, hungry, sick and frozen,
Unfortunates that nature’s wrath so ruthlessly has chosen.
I yearn to help the fisherman whose boat was smashed on rocks,
The widow who had lost her ox,
The dad alone surviving killer inundation,
Children running from a conflagration,
Shivering mountain families cut off,
devoid of home, or food, or information.
All of them, our relatives of one world family tree
We have to help.
The next time, friend, it could be thee, or me.
---Anonymous Poet
©2005
by Paul Hertelendy.
The illustration is from IMSI'S Master clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael,
CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Dec. 19, 2005.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Paul Hertelendy. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Paul's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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