Summer's ending

LOST IN TRANSLATIONS

Students seek classes they need for graduation
teachers seek enrollment for job security
Different purposes bring us back to school.

The holidays will follow with pumpkins and ghosts,
turkeys and stuffing
and men in red coats.

Hungry merchants will beg for our dollars
unintentionally dishonoring Christ's life.
How does this reflect us who revere his birth?

Each December my budget won't allow it
still I spend what I don't have, starting the New Year behind
like a prisoner shackled to the barrows
a slave to time
a slave to procedures
a slave to expectations

"This year will be different" is my silent vow.
Gift cards pervade the marketplace now.
Like a key they unlock my shackles and worry
I don't have to engage in a shopping fury.

So I offer them thanks.
Thanks be to the gift cards.