My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
My den is all a cozy glow;
And snug before the fire I sit,
And wait to feel the old year go.
I dedicate to solemn thought
Amid my too-unthinking days,
This sober moment, sadly fraught
With much of blame, with little praise.
But why, I ask, am I so glum?
Then “hope and change” I do recall,
What we have done; what we’ve become,
As light shines on my gleaming wall.
I’m jealous of my cozy glow,
In incandescence am I wrapped.
But problems are about to grow,
To fluorescence we must adapt.
In th’enactment of a foolish law,
We foolishly did acquiesce.
The light we knew is now withdrawn,
And now our bulbs do us depress.
And so we to our doctors go,
In mournful glumness and poor eyes
Dispirited and feeling low,
In search of treatment for our sighs.
The docs agree: the bulb’s to blame;
“So change ‘em,” they forthwith suggest.
“Your mood, your eyesight you’ll reclaim,
And glumness fin’lly lay to rest.”
“Not covered!” shouts th’insurance biz.
“The bulbs just go to him who pays.
The price, though high, is what it is
To fix your sad and blue malaise.”
Emerges then a great divide
As some in yellow bathe and glow
While blue for others won’t subside
And madly does their grievance grow.
Will “change and hope” we come to hear,
Will a candidate thus declare?
It will to many him endear
Who rallies with the call, “Unfair!”
In office will he labor to
Restore the old as the new norm
And ending the regime of blue,
Replace it with a brightness warm.
My glass is filled, my pipe is lit
My den is all a cozy glow
And snug before the fire I sit,
And long to see the new year go.
(With thanks to the Bard of the Yukon.)
