Saugus Christmas Poetry

From the desk of Tom Sheehan

  Editor’s Note: Saugus historian and book author Tom Sheehan wrote these two poems and requested to share them with Saugus Advocate readers to put them in the holiday spirit. Sheehan received this year’s “Person of the Year Award” during the 41st Annual Saugus Founder’s Day Celebration in September.

Merry Christmas from Saugus

When each tree is snowed upon each limb,

when children lie sleeping waiting him,

when Lily Pond gives up quick owl’s hoot

and snow is crunching beneath my boot,

know I walk here and think now of you

who sometimes or not knew this view;

who by this pond and this water wide

may have walked here along its side;

who one summer may have lately cast

for bass or pickerel that quickly passed,

or whose shorewide winds of December ilk

dared touch your cheek with a dash of silk;

or when plush leaves were turned to gold

as pure-flung Autumn engaged its hold.

Be sure all seasons of your younger grace

walk beside me in this near-silent place,

know I think, while Christmas spreads

from angel’s top to children’s beds,

of all my friends whom I correspond

and wish visitation beside this pond.

Come to Lily Pond again, to Saugus town

where Christmas once was tender known,

where we gather in childhood memories

this pond’s air and smell and winter breeze,

where all our younger lives were spent

about the shores where curving went,

and on the slickered ice we slickered flew

fair to the Turnpike and out of view.

Welcome Christmas back as it was then,

the songs we sang, the friends we’ve been,

the wishes springing now full on air,

for you all the hopes the heart can bear.

Merry Christmas.

(Tom Sheehan and Jamie Sheehan)

Merry Christmas, Friend

May the day be bright and shiny,

the winds come soft as a fox glove,

the silence in early time of day

prepare you for the ones you love.

May music be sweetest sound you hear

through the clutter of a special day,

the drums though keep rolling, and horns,

oh distantly on clouds, signal sweet array,

and in background where music’s played,

may you hear the softest old melodies,

where humming is the most proper sound,

locked up in the gifts you get, and the keys

to a puzzle of proportioned grace, though dim

when you start to resolve the constant clues

set up most neatly in matter of square boxes,

where you start out on tips and myriad cues,

or you find a blue or a lovely shade of red,

or glance at pencil tips so graced in pink,

or a yellow hint from a flower’s heart

or a lavender drawing you to the brink.

Merry Christmas, dear girl of guts,

and no ifs or ands or buts.