santa's treason...Santa's Treason? Why Johnny Is A Non-believer!

Oh, how greatly i wanted a sled for my 9th birthday
that last birthday before my father
became an Army Chaplain
and the peace-filled world of Sunnyside
was buried in time
We moved from the little community
and never again would we live
where I might use my sled.
In 1942 my playmate benny was
incarcerated for being "yellow."

Today, evening thoughts and prayers
for my imminent anniversary of 70 solar revolutions
I wonder
I wonder as i have wandered thru years
decades, and scores
how innocently i have abhorred war
and become a sainted peacelet.

Today i had a letter from a filosopher friend
email is a miracle of modernity
it moves us from ages of struggle for simple survival
to a new epoch, struggle for complex survival.
Yet, ever, still, since, now
as the childness in me wonders and wanders
thru memories long past, present presence, and future fullness
ever to awe and audacity.

In the higher echelons of the government of the usa
the very faith of decency and difference are being challenged
being smeared with fears of full and unmitigated "treason".

A mystical 13 years ago, i was confounded
quickly compromised, conscripted, registered
and to be committed
to endless, profoundly subversive, devious, secret, covert work.
I was identified as that most incredible thief of children's affections
... I was called santa ...
I was burdened with unaccustomed labors
and asked to breach the locked security
of the homes and treasured institutions
of friends, neighbors, relatives and strangers.
I was to labor under the ruse of knowing everyone's name
and to feign knowledge when I was ignorant
I was to bear false witness -- covering up
for naughtiness and badness
and i was to keep secret records.
I was allowed to collect any kind of information i wanted
on anyone
and expected to keep total biofiles.
Not even my most trusted colleagues
were to be taken into my confidence.

J. Edgar Hoover was a paragon of power in his daze
yet in the daze, weaks, months, years, decades and decadence
scores and scoring of my global travel and work
I was unchecked in power, prestige
and most criminally of all, in the popular culture
I was assigned the task of convincing billions of human beings
that i was a chubby old man who worked rarely
and did not care for people beyond the age of my having them duped.

All in all, that was bad enuf, but worse
parents like the likes of Johnny would deprecate my goodness,
counter treason, i believe
by threatening kidlets with the idea that i was a disciplinarian
"better watch out, better not cry, for i am telling you why ..."
heresy confronts my reason!

So ... even if I light but one candle
fill but one hope or keep faith with only one dying child
I am treasonous

For hundreds and hundreds of years, almost two thousand years
people have known that my magic is not cruel
So, if my dissent from the common current of "fighting terrorism" is treason
please bring me to trial
by a jury of my peers
secretly, like keeping a Santa's list
I doubt that Johnny can find a jury of peers

I appear like a bearded old man
with a bag full of gifts
spreading joy and peace.
Johnny and his peers may sum day learn that
to the question, "Santa, are you real?"
I always reply without any fear of false witness
"Johnny, Virginia, YES, I am real ..."
guilty as charged, overcharged ...

peace,
santa

and also, if you can help me get
a gift i have longed for
for millennia ...

a gift for santa?

I want to live in a world where the past tense, the present tense,
and the future tense--all avoid pre-tense.
I want to live in a world where the future protects the past...
and where, without question or doubt, the past protects the future ...
this may be the greatest present we may ask for.

I want all of the best dreams of all ages
to be the 'ourstory' of the future.
I want all the horrors of all our pasts to be forgiven,
miscellaneous errors of ignorance
miserably multiplied by unmitigated arrogance.

I want to live in a world where no child will ever ask
why did you save my life?

I do not want to live in a world where children ask us
the well-fed, the educated, the healthy, the rich, the powerful
'innocent questions' for which i have no innocent answers.