Christmas carols

It’s that carol time of year, they’re playing in my head

I hear their joyful melodies from daybreak until bed,

Singing “joy to the world” and “oh Holy night”

We hear them in the evening and again when it’s light,

How can we honestly and truly sing “the night is divine” ,

And cattle are lowing, the baby’s born, all’s fine ,

When in our cruel world the suffering is as much at Christmas time,

As any other time of year- with accidents and crime?

And for a song all through the year, people kill each other

One does it to his enemy, another to his brother,

The sadness of each dying soul brings worry and despair

And grief and all the hollowness of losses hard to bear

We pretend the peace and comfort some experience each day,

Is normal and ubiquitous and all the world’s at play,

But not far from where we live, others’ innocence is melted

A dog tied up for days on end, without food or drink or shelter

Cries out for help but no one comes, a casualty of the system.

Forgotten by her owner, the trusted one.. her world,

Abandoned to live out her fate and at last die of starvation.

A band of happy kangaroos in country quite near here,

Are shot en masse, their world destroyed, to leave the land for profiteers.

Unwitting cattle in the north are bred to be exported,

They grow up strong and fat til ready to be sorted.

Obedient, and trusting they line up to board the ships,

Without the need of prodding, manhandling or whips,

Their last few days on board the ship of misery and torture

Finish not in green and rolling fields, gentle weather and good fortune

But in blazing heat or blistering sands

Of far away and foreign lands

Greeted not with care or kindness but brutal actions and dislike,

For crimes they’ve not committed not in memory or in life ,

Of course we shouldn’t send them and our government's to blame

Their hands are stained all red with blood. Most of them are the same.

So Happy Christmas everyone, I hope your table’s loaded,

That brothers talk and mothers speak in phrases carefully worded,

And that carols play for you that day all spiritual and sublime,

To make this festive holiday a holy wondrous time

And you hear the finer voice of yours, your mind can carefully capture

Then you will see the purpose clear, a duty. ‘Twill enrapture!