Home alone for Christmas
No need for a “Ba Humbug”
No necessity of a tree
And all that stuff
Cooking for one, no stress
No call to pretend excitement
About some kid supposedly
Born two millennia ago
Hey! The real deal already happened
Days ago, the turning of Solstice
In the dance of Earth and Sun
No myth in that
Something real, as eternal
As anything gets for the planet
And tomorrow, the “seasonal”
Music is gone for eleven months
One tradition remains to enjoy
Dylan Thomas reading
“A Child’s Christmas In Wales”
Celebration enough

Bob Wertzler is retired from almost twenty years in the mental health field in California and Arizona. There are times the title, “Recovering Therapist”, seems to fit. In 2006 he retired to move to Western North Carolina to help and become primary care giver for his father who had developed Dementia. Before all that, there was work at various times as a soldier (US Army 1967-70), community organizer, cab driver, welfare case worker, wooden toy maker, carpenter, warehouse worker, and other things. He relates to a line in a Grateful Dead song, “What a long, strange trip its been.”