Picture the scene

Snow scene
Paints times of nostalgia
Quintessential village landscape
Bedecked with a blanket of snow
The coverall.
Happy families skipping
by the river path
To the kismet bridge
Beneath the star that was foretold.
And beneath the snow
Under that cloak of invisibility
What lies there on a cold winter night of glad tidings;
Do you know?
Have you watched the homeless
Beg in the shopping mall
And the destitute turn to crime
Or shoot their own stars
So they too can dream of fluffy white*
Marshmallow clouds in the arms
Of evergreen Christmas trees?
Yet it’s Christmas, a time of winter cheer
Giving and goodwill; give it a thought.

I was attracted by this lovely snow scene in the barber’s window and in most of the small shops in town a different if similar Christmas snow scene. So lovely and happy and it did in fact raise my spirits to see it. However, as I sat down to write the poem twisted itself as I thought and saw that our preparations leave the poor and destitute even further behind. A time of goodwill and giving to others has been turned inward and made a gluttony of excess. In my local town the churches have thankfully set up night shelters for the 3 months of December January and February and Christmas Day itself promises to be special. I wonder what Christmas specials are happening in your towns?

Image from the Song It’s a Marshmallow World in the Winter: lyrics © Shapiro Bernstein & Co. Inc.

Words and photo by Englepip.

Daily Prompt: Rubes versus city slickers

noun, Informal.

an unsophisticated person from a rural area; hick.

I don’t know if poverty produces rubes

Or if they just exist because they are

Unaffected, innocent, not classy

Living in the country.

Perhaps there are no rubes in Africa

Perhaps there is just

Money and no money.

Food and no food.

Clothes and making do.

Perhaps the unsophistication

Is borne out of hard physical labour

With no time to loll about

As wastrels laughing at others

And tricking them out of the little they have.

In the country living is hard

Transport is little and you must

Walk and carry and work to exist

Trusting others to help

Because your survival

Depends upon it.

Perhaps the city slickers

Are scarred, damaged and hard

Replacing the warmth of village life

With meanness and materialism.

But perhaps their sophistication

Is enviable; perhaps not.

Perhaps innocence is praiseworthy;

Perhaps not.

Maybe we just have to exist separately.

And try not to insult each other.

It is the first time I have come across the word rube. I immediately thought which pictures I might have of unsophisticated people from a rural area and I found this shot from my time in Africa. There is poverty everywhere in Africa but the difference between city slickers and countryside dwellers is most noticeable when country people move to the city and get taken advantage of.

via Daily Prompt: Rube