From West by Northwest.org Arts & Letters Poem After Christmas By Tina Tau McMahon Dec 24, 2002 Why does it tear at me so sometimes-- the tide, the relentless pour of things that seem to appear from nowhere to sunder me from peace, from stillness, from calm-- this jagged jetsam, toys, books, clothing, shoes and newspapers shed in piles around the house as if by packs of unknown creatures that keep losing their skins-- why does it hurt? I have ungrateful stories in my head about it. Ruskin mutters, Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful and believe to be beautiful; the ancestors stand watching, millennial, silent, ragged some of them, all of them poorer than this, stunned by the quantity of stuff that pours through here, the presents, the trash; and with them the presence of the world's people, the hungry millions, the ones who wait, who wonder what can be going on in America: these things, these voices, leave contrails of guilt across the sky of my mind-- and then there is my desperate wish for beauty, for order, for everything in its place, for peace. I keep picturing the Shakers-- hands to work and heart to God- -and I feel defeated, as if I should be able somehow single-handedly to combat this tide of worldly goods, turn it toward the hungry before it appears in my living room; as if I keep flunking some incessant, elemental test. *** Copyright © 2000 by Tina Tau McMahin. All rights reserved. "Poem After Christmas" is from Eating the Foam by Tina Tau McMahon. This copyright protects Tina Tau McMahon's right to future publication of her work. Nonprofit, activists, and educational groups may circulate this poem (forward it, reprint it, translate it, post it, or reproduce it) for nonprofit uses. Please do not change any part of it without permission. © Copyright 2000-2004 by West by Northwest.org