If you are reading my poems here – for the first or the umpteenth time – many thanks and I wish you a wonderful holiday season. I posted this poem at Christmastime last year, too. This is one of about 100 poems published in my book, SLOW RIVERS (purchase information below).

A CHRISTMAS SONNET

Viewing a photo in which
he sits with a grandson
looking over a book filled
with colorful exotic animals,
the old man’s first thought
is that he must lose weight

but the little boy is smiling,
delighted to have spotted
the Peruvian Ant-Eater
before his grandfather did,
and not at all concerned
with double-chins or waistlines.

Let us be gentle with ourselves at Christmas,
remembering only that which truly matters.

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SLOW RIVERS is currently in-stock at Michigan bookstores including Three Pines Studio in Cross Village, the Good Hart General Store in Goodhart, Stirling Books and Brew in Albion, Glendora Bookshop in Buchanan and at all Schuler Books locations. Please consider bookshop.org when ordering online, a website which benefits independent bookstores. Let me know if you are having trouble finding SLOW RIVERS and I’ll steer you in the right direction: slowriverpoems@gmail.com.

Joseph Neely, all rights reserved.