christmas eve

i wonder
it being Christmas eve
what happened to the fabled time
when people knew how to set aside
vast differences,
like in 1916
when the British
and Germans
on the front lines
forgot all their brother's tragedies
and played football
in enemy territory
after the Germans
had given the gift
of a Christmas tree
to some fledging sergeant
who later died from gas wounds.

it could be
that peace and joy
is not considered feminine or masculine
so it hovers out there in the ether
waiting to bless and terrify
during those rare moments in humanity
when people start being human beings again
and buy new coats for the insane
and toys for impoverished crippled children.

i will never forget
those endless days
when these friends i had
were obsessed with experimenting only with drugs
and well sorry to say
its not a victimless crime
when someone you cared about throws their life away
and abandons human decency
when they begun selling themselves
for a line of coke
or when they forget their last car accident
with a bag of nauseating grass
or when they breed (this is the worst i have heard)
kids to have drug mules
and then float them over the border
packed with heroin.

not to be a jerk
but i really hate drugs
and its the only thing i can point towards
when finding problems with humanity
because otherwise i would have to not be so kind
and just say that people are inherently awful

but for these moments
when the counter-woman at some conveinience store
laughs like a bobble head in good cheer
over something her boyfriend texted her

or how people spending their birthdays in county hospitals
get candy from a nurse

or small gestures that locate an essential lack in you or I
that settle some minor existential question
whether it is about kindness or being alive