This came from the Abbey News via the calligraphy list; it seemed
appropriate to forward it to y'all:

>LIKE, IT CAME FROM THE POLE, DUDE, IV
>(Santa and the Pacific Rim)
>by Sally Shelton
>
>'Twas the night before Christmas (it comes every year,
>Just like taxes and bad verse and all that you fear),
>And the moon on the breast of the new fall'n snow
>Was two thousand miles distant from San Diego.
>Yes, no sign of sleighs or of snowmen or ice;
>Christmas in Surfland looke eerily nice.
>All the museum was mellow, but I wasn't calm.
>Santa would never leave gifts 'neath a palm.
>Santa is. . .pudgy. . .and that's not PC,
>Nor is forced reindeer labor or elf slavery.
>With all of the paperwork he'd have to file,
>I figured he'd skip California by miles.
>So I worked late that night in the museum collections,
>Working on grants going in all directions,
>Grousing and sniping (too much working with birds)
>And trying to find the right wheedling words,
>When, what to my wondering eyes should appear
>But a globular shape in the high atmosphere
>Aiming to land on the museum's flat roof--
>But a disaster awaited that first tiny hoof.
>Santa had fed himself well all year long,
>And trying to land here was terribly wrong.
>The weight was just more than the fault line could hold,
>And, as he touched down, he made all the ground fold
>And buckle and heave (I was heaving some, too)
>And Santa and cervids were airborne anew.
>It looked like a rodeo up in the sky
>As I clung to the door frame and watched things fly by.
>There were bottles and fossils and flowers and gems--
>And was that a curator shreiking out "Auntie Em!"?
>Santa was caught in the antlers and reins,
>And I shuddered to think of the multiple pains.
>As soon as the quake stopped, SC came to earth
>And came to his feet--no mean trick for his girth.
>His belly was shaking, though he wasn't ho-hoing,
>And he threw me some boxes and said he was going.
>I can't say he was much of a jolly old elf,
>But the big rock'n'roll left me speechless myself.
>He untangled his team, but he found only six,
>So two or three reindeer are up to some tricks,
>Hiding behind dioramas and walls
>And scaring the tourists by running down halls.
>The boxes? Emergency gear for survival,
>Post-earthquake, -election, and -budget arrival.
>Dried soup and used flashlights, secondhand seismic bracing,
>Political earplugs, belt tightener lacing.
>He left with a finger aside of his nose;
>We did, too, but not the finger he chose.
>But don't think that we don't know whom to exalt:
>We've renamed the feature the Santa Claus Fault.

Happy Holidays - Anne
Anne Lane
Curatorial Assistant
Museum of York County
4621 Mt. Gallant Road
Rock Hill, SC  29732-9905
803-329-2121 ext 122  *  [log in to unmask]