On this Christmas day, I want to acknowledge one of the greatest gifts I ever received from my parents: my love of reading. Both are voracious readers, and my father (Scott Bates) would read to me and my brothers every evening. This included, for each of us, both a story or chapter and a poem. We did not have a television so we centered our imaginative life in books.
My father writes wonderful light verse, and every year the family Christmas card has one of his poems. He’s allowing me to share the following one with you (written in 1974), which alludes to many of the books that he read to us. See how many of the books you recognize. I’ll provide a key in Monday’s post.
Incidentally, he wrote the poem in memory of Stratton Buck, his long-time colleague in the Sewanee French Department who died around Christmas time. It appears in the self-published Merry Green Peace, a collection of Christmas poems.
A Christmas Carrel
When the students have departed
For a sunny southern beach
Leaving teachers broken-hearted
Without anyone to teach
When the classrooms are deserted
And the halls are cold and blue
Oh the library’s disconcerted
Without anything to do
Oh the library’s dark and empty
Like a sock without a shoe
But what’s this Listen Look
There’s a murmur in the stacks
There’s a glimmer in a book
And it’s coming through the cracks
You can hear the Xerox mutter
At the laughter in the stair
All the file cards are a-flutter
There’s a party in the air
There’s a stir in Circulation
And it’s spreading everywhere
All our friends from all the ages
Slip out of their printed pages
Filling all the empty spaces
With their own familiar faces
Here comes Leerie lighting lanterns
Down the desert aisles
Through the Toll Booth come the Phantoms
Cheshire Cat’s all smiles
Down the chimney Chimes are ringing
Tom pipes up a tune
While on the heart the Cricket’s singing
Hits from Brigadoon
The Owl and the Pussycat are dancing
In the Reading Room
The Selfish Giant opens castle
Passes out free ale
Mr. Pickwick mixing wassail
Stops to tell a tale
Meadow Mice are singing carols
Ratty cuts the cheese
While Long John Silver rolls out barrels—
Rum from pirate seas!
Uncle Remus and Br’er Rabbit
Have rum with their black-eyed peas
Now the party’s getting merry
Toby flips his wig
Peggotty and Ham are very
Glad to dance a jig
Friday’s fixing creole gumbo
Scrooge eats goose and glows
Sancho Panza does a rhumba
With the Pobble That Has No Toes
While high on the top of the First Christmas Tree
Shines the Dong with the Luminous Nose
But all good times must have an ending
Leerie snuffs the lights
Back to storied halls are wending
Ladies with their knights
Back they go to Magic Island
Cave and Hollow Tree
Jungle Book and Scottish Highland
To live adventurously
Until they meet again next year
In Christmas revelry.
You can get a sense of how fun Christmases were with my father. Merry Christmas to you all.
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