The Lost Christmas Eve

He could have stayed there the entire night
For to him music was the voice of God
For it never needed translation
And could lift up lives that were often quite hard

But then he heard a different kind of music
From somewhere else close by
And he followed the trail of those new notes
Till he found himself outside

The notes led him to a blues bar
That was right next to the hotel
And the angel watched some lonely people enter it
And wondered if this
Was where all the lonely people did dwell

Then another guardian angel
Who happened to be near
Told him about the old blues bar
And whispered in his ear

Here the tragically beautiful
And the beautifully tragic
Drift through this night
In a last quest for magic

Their faces are masks
That so artfully disguise
The wounds in their hearts
The scars in their eyes

Now these scars in their eyes
Never hurt, never bleed
But like cracks in a mirror
They distort all they see

For when the heart’s an open wound
Its greatest threat, I fear
Is that the salt rubbed into it
Does come from one’s own tears

Now there are many places on this earth
That one thinks that God has forgot
But one can often find an angel or a saint
Where one assumes angels and saints are not”

And then the other angel reminded him
Of their Lord’s point of view
You’ll know them not by how they appear
You’ll know them by what they do”

So when the next patron went inside
The angel followed him undetected
But what he found within that bar
Was not quite what he expected

There was an old piano player there
Playing with a honky-tonk sound
And everyone who entered that place depressed
That piano player turned their night around

And one by one he’d draw each person
Out of their self-imposed cage
And before they realized it
He had them singing on the stage


<h4>Christmas Nights In Blue</h4>
Just another night in New York City
Snow comes down looks real pretty
Don’t know how but suddenly there you are
With Jelly Roll Morton playin’ for the bar

Inside here, lights are low
But each song has its own glow
As he floats them through that smokey air
You just can’t believe he’s really there

How old is he?
Cannot say
But claims he taught Cab Calloway
And on this night I somehow believe him
Knows every song that Christmas got
Even ones my brain has dropped
Just him and that old fir tree
All lit up this night
Electric blue

Just another night in New York City
Snow comes down looks real pretty
Can’t believe but suddenly there you are
Talking with strangers sittin’ cross the bar
Suddenly, all are laughin’
This night’s smart, always craftin’
Building bridges nearly everywhere
Hits a wall, it just builds a stairs

Outside the colored lights they bleed
For snow is white and colors need
As it just comes down like pure salvation
It offers all its amnesty
And makes your neighbor different see
By the light of that fir tree
And this old bar
Electrified in blue

I gotta drop dead simple
Childhood view of salvation
Perhaps that’s how it was always meant to be
And the more I add up all this information
It seems it all comes down in the end to you and me

So you look around till you find a phone
Then you call your mom and everyone at home
And the bar looks on and they start to cheer
When you talk to folks you haven’t seen in years

And the snow comes down
And the children play
And they pray to God
It never goes away
And a childhood prayer
Should never be denied
As the night rolls on
Till it’s carolized

Carolized
Carolized
Carolized
Carolized

And on this tree
The lights are done
But the colors here are down one
I guess it kind of fits the situation
Ornaments still shining bright
Watch them glitter in the light
Just this old fir tree and me
All lit up this night
Electric blue

Then a guitarist and a bass player
Read some notes off a music page
And added a little bit of jazz
A sound that never seems to age

Now that old piano player knew
There were other musicians in that crowd
And one by one he brought them up
And the music, it got loud

The band played on and on
With no one looking at their watch
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better
They would turn it up a notch

By this time a harder rocking stage
Would be impossible to find
And though no one was now drinking
The owner did not seem to mind

And the angel marveled how one man
Could turn around a life
And then that life turn around another’s
And how it rippled through this night

But there was someone in that room
Whose heart had not been changed
A heart that had grown so hard
You’d have thought it could never be arranged

It was the businessman from downtown
Who had stopped there to rest his feet
And he clung to his drink
(Where he watched his thoughts sink)
While any strangers, he refused to greet

You could see upon his face
How happiness had been so long deferred
It was practically as if unhappiness
Had somehow become preferred

Now the angel had not seen the businessman
Though they had in that room been near
Nor did the angel see him as he left the bar
When he could no longer stand this Christmas cheer

And as the businessman exited the door
He heard someone complaining on the TV
It was the Grinch” ranting against Christmas
And the man found that he agreed


<h4>What Is Christmas?</h4>
What is Christmas?
Tinseled fairytales
Day old stockings lined up in a row

What is Christmas
Could someone tell me that?
What is Christmas?
Surely, I don't know

And everywhere these lights
Who needs to color night?
Could this whole thing be planned?
I do not understand

This Christmas
Trees with colored lights
Underneath they still are only trees
Do you think that one day perhaps they might
Find that Christmas
Is kind of a disease?

Every year it's waiting for me
Waiting for me
Every year it constantly defies
Placing strangers
There before me
There before me
Spreading hope and cheer
Mixed in with happiness
Fraternal bliss and other Christmas lies!

And there's one more thing that I have discovered
And I would now like you to know
The reason for Christmas I now realize
Is an excuse to tolerate snow
Snow!
I don't even like the sound of it
Anyway, where was I
Oh, yes!

What is Christmas?
Candles everywhere
A fire hazard any other day
Children light them
No one seems to care
All for Christmas

Every year it returns here
And every year it’s waiting for me
Why can't Christmas disappear
And just pretend it never saw me
Every year I get my hopes up
That it will somehow just leave
But every year I wake to find
That once again it now is Christmas Eve

And though his time was growing strained
He could not walk away from this soul in pain
For in the dark he had now seen
The bleeding of this wound extreme

So along the snow covered sidewalk
The angel did carefully step
Following the trail of blood drops
Combined with tears that had never been wept

And then he saw the businessman
Who had been grumbling about this night
And he wondered how that man had carried this wound
So long throughout his life

He watched the man walk past the church
Where a song seemed to reach out for him
But the man just walked right past it
And would not let it in

For The Sake Of Our Brother

Now why this man’s soul was bleeding
The angel had to understand
So invisible, he stood by him
And then gently touched his hand

Which caused the man to stand there still
Despite the winter’s cold
And while he stood there in that trance
The angel read his soul

It seemed the man was not always like
The man he had become
And that angel wondered how that change had happened
And when it had begun

The man had been born to a kind and religious family
And raised in the Midwest
And all throughout his childhood
This man, clearly, had been blessed

He grew up believing, among other things
Man was made in the image of God
He went to school, observed all rules
While working very hard

He had always tried to help others
Excelled at nearly every task
And when he’d graduated high school
Of course, he was the first one in his class

And in his eighteenth summer
When it was time for him to leave
He had offers from several colleges
All of them Ivy League

And at college in all his studies
He always received straight A”s
And when he tried his hand in theater
He got the lead in the senior play

It appeared to nearly everyone
There was no talent that he lacked
And for three years on the football team
He was the star quarterback

And there he also met the girl
Who did become his wife
With her, his world was now complete
He had the perfect life

When they had graduated college
They were wed in a ceremony quite grand
Then they moved to New York
In a dream they seemed caught
Where all had been perfectly planned

She decorated their Park Avenue apartment
In a 1920’s art-deco style
And six months after they had moved in
She told him, they would soon be having a child

And after their first ultrasound
He knew they were having a son
Their lives could not have been better
And they had only just begun

Together they arrived early at the hospital
On the delivery date
The father was taking no chances
And did not want to risk being late

But while waiting outside the delivery room
He could tell that something was going wrong
For too many doctors were rushing in
With none coming out for too long

When her own doctor finally came out
With several nurses at his side
He said that his wife had started hemorrhaging
And despite their best efforts, she died

Then in an effort to console him
A nurse gave him his newborn to hold
But from the way the child felt limp in his arms
He knew there was still more bad news to be told

The doctor then gave the prognosis
As gently as anyone could
But before he could finish explaining
The father only too well understood

The child had been cut off from oxygen
For minutes, which is far too long
The damage was now irreversible
His brain permanently malformed

He’d never hold a job,
Learn to read or ever talk
And it would be a miracle
If the child even learned how to walk

And with those words the father felt
His entire world falling apart
And he stumbled for the words to express
The tearing inside of his heart

He cried out, why did God have to take her
While she was still so young
And then as if to cut him deeper
Leave this thing here as his son

Please explain to me God’s wisdom
How could He decide
To take from me my precious wife
While leaving this alive

There is no reason for this life
Why does he even exist
And if he had never been born
There is no way he’d have ever been missed

If man is made in God’s image
Then something here is surely amiss
For there is nothing of God
Nothing of God
Nothing of God
Nothing of God
Nothing of God in this”

And then he asked for the child
To be placed in a state run home
And after he had signed the papers
He walked into that night alone

And in this world he found unkind
He built a wall around his mind
And every year he’d add new parts
Until it had also enclosed his heart

He kept his job and paid his debts
As he slowly became a silhouette
Of a man walking among the tombs
While living his life within his wounds

He distanced himself from all his friends
Even his sisters and brothers
And as time it went by, he developed his eyes
So they could only see the flaws in others

With this final glimpse, the angel stepped away
And the man shook himself out of his trance
Then continued his walk back towards his home
And few would have given his soul half of a chance

And the angel himself felt helpless
As he watched that old man there
So he did what even humans do
And he quickly said a prayer

And as the prayer flew to his Lord
The angel did decide
To carefully follow the old man
And stay closely by his side

For on this night can one deny
The gift of a more sympathetic eye
To cast upon our fellow man
And on this night to understand

The frailty of childhood dreams
Like fireflies over summer streams
And if one dared to remove time’s veil
Could one retrace those childhood trails?

But whispers in the winter’s wind
Told of rescued dreams, forgiven sins
And who among us shall be deemed
To rescue some forgotten dream?

So on this night of Christmas Eve
As once again the spirits weave
Its snowswept dreams and colored lights
With bits of magic into each life

And as the snow comes gently down
Its soul intent to reach the ground
To cover scars the world still feels
Perhaps to give them time to heal

For as men invest in money
And professors in what they know
God invests in mercy
Like winter invests in snow

Now the old man was nearing a toy shop
Where he could hear a music box kind of sound
From a miniature carousel with its miniature horses
All circling faithfully around

And a little girl wearing a Russian styled coat
Was carefully looking inside
At the horses and knights and the trains with their lights
While she was imagining they all were alive

For at this time a child will dare
To see what is perhaps not there
Or at least not there to adult eyes
Who have forgotten how to fantasize

Now that young girl, outside the store
Was trying to capture snow’s magic
But each flake melted at her touch
Which her young mind found quite tragic

And while chasing an elusive snowflake
That was determined to reach the ground
She bumped into the businessman passing by
And nearly knocked him down

And thinking she was in trouble
The child quickly apologized
But the man was not accepting it
She could see it in his eyes

She explained she had been looking in the toy shop
That tomorrow would be Christmas Day
But the man muttered words she could not understand
So she searched for something else she could say

Do you have any children?” The child asked the man
No,” was his instant reply
And though he said it in his firmest voice
In his heart he knew he had lied

The girl was getting on his nerves
Which were already shot
Something about her bothered him
But he could not say quite what

Then he noticed the time was approaching midnight
What was she doing on the street?
When he asked the girl this question
The child seemed to retreat

She said she was staying with her parents
At the hotel, right next door
They were there for just this one night
In room twelve twenty-four

Then he said, You best get back there as quick as you can fly!”
And he watched as she ran all the way
Until she was safely back inside

Then he took several steps
In the direction towards his home
But then he hesitated
And took out his mobile phone

And called up the institution
Where he had left his son
To find out if he was still there and alive
Wondering if the past could be undone

The operator who answered, searched the computer
To see if the child had survived
And she was sincerely happy to tell him
Your son is no longer here, but he is still alive!”

Then the lady who was very kind
Said, If you have a short while
I can give you all the information
That is here inside his file

I see that at the age of twelve
He had finally learned to walk
And could understand most things people said
But has never learned to talk

He’s living uptown in the Bronx
At a boarding house hotel”
And then the lady gave him the phone number
And hotel’s address as well

And for the first time in many years
The man thought about his life
And all the things he had left behind
And, of course, he thought about his wife

And he wondered if she had lived
The things they might have done
But really most of all right now
He thought about his son


<h4>Back To A Reason (Part II)</h4>
Time
Standing all alone
I bled for you
I wanted to
Each drop my own

Slowly they depart
But fall in vain
Like desert rain
And still they fall on and on and on

Got to get back to a reason
Got to get back to a reason I once knew
And this late in the seasons
One by one distractions fade from view

So
Drifting through the dark
The sympathy
Of night's mercy
Inside my heart
Is your life the same?
Do ghosts cry tears?
Do they feel years?
As time just goes on and on and on

Got to get back to a reason
Got to get back to a reason I once knew
And this late in the seasons
One by one distractions fade from view

I’m looking for you
I’m looking for I don’t know what
I can’t see there anymore
And all my time’s been taken

Is this what it seems?
The lure of a dream
And I’m afraid to walk back through that door
To find that I’ve awakened

The night seems to care
The dreams in the air
The snow’s coming down
It beckons me dare

It whispers, it hopes
It holds and confides
And offers a bridge
Across these divides

The parts of my life
I’ve tried to forget
It’s gathered each piece
And carefully kept

Somewhere in the dark
Beyond all the cold
There is a child
That’s part of my soul

Got to get back to a reason
Got to get back to a reason I once knew
And this late in the seasons
One by one distractions fade from view
The only reason I have left is
You

If he went there and saw his son
What words could he possibly say
Would his own child recognize him
And if he did, would he turn away?

Dare he rekindle this hope
Perhaps to only watch it die
And standing there in this man’s place
I wonder, would you or I?

Now the angel knew if enough time passes by
Any hope can be smothered
So before it was dead, to the first prayer he had said
The angel quickly added another

The old man stood there thinking
While staring in that old toy shop
With its carousel still turning round
In front of a music box clock

For what good’s a clock without a chime
A useless thing that just keeps time
Recording moments that come and leave
But this clock’s chimes struck midnight
Upon a lost Christmas Eve

And when the final chime had spoken
And the twelfth bell had finally rung
The indecision in the father was broken
He now knew what had to be done

So he got into a yellow cab
And prayed that it might lead
Through all this snow and streetlight glow
To a past he might retrieve

When the taxi dropped him off
At the boarding house hotel
It was a rundown building
With a musty, rundown smell

And he asked for his son
From the hotel’s night desk clerk
Who said his son was not there
He was not back from work

When the father said that was impossible
The clerk replied, I’m not here to debate
But he works at the hospital, just down the block
If you want you can sit here and wait
But he never returns till real late”

Then the father tried asking another question
But the clerk went back to watching his TV
Which was also playing, How the Grinch Stole Christmas”
And the father mused, this movie has no sympathy,
Well, at least not when it comes down to me”

Once outside he saw the hospital’s entrance
And went to information by the front door
Who confirmed that his son had a job there
And worked up on the seventh floor

So he took the elevator up to that floor
Which was marked Maternity”
And the man knew in his heart that this was a mistake
For his son working here could not be

But the nurse on duty reconfirmed that he did
And since her rounds were about to begin
If he would like to follow her
She would gladly take the father to him

So he followed her to a large dark room
That to him seemed unusually empty
Except for several incubators glowing on the right
Each with a trembling baby

These infants were all extremely frail
And obviously in incredible pain
And this sight cut deep into that father’s soul
And he asked the nurse, please, to explain

These children were born to mothers
Who were addicted to crack cocaine
And these children are born in complete withdrawal
For that drug is still deep in their veins

We can give them no other drugs to ease their withdrawals
Since they are born premature and quite frail
And any form of pain killer
Could easily cause their small hearts to fail”

And what does my son do here?”
The father asked, He is not a patient, I assume”
The nurse did not say a single word
But nodded to the far left corner of the room

And there the father saw his son
Who looked like himself when he was a younger man
Rocking back and forth in a rocking chair
A trembling infant held in his hands

And in his arms the child did not cry
But slept to silent lullabies
And his son rocked that newborn back and forth
Until finally, a dream was caught
But still at his rocking, his son faithfully kept
Till that poor child’s trembling had also, finally, left

Then the nurse whispered softly
Into the father’s ear
Something that a blind man could see
But the father needed to hear

Whispered to him in this room
Filled with mankind’s misbegotten
Something that the father had known once
But somehow had forgotten

She said, It is this way with each of us
We all need to be held, at least twice
Once upon the day that we are born
And once more when we leave this life

Your son has been coming to this place
Since as long as I’ve been working here
He’s never missed a single day
In nearly twenty years

He always arrives promptly on time
But a time card he does not keep
For he never leaves this maternity room
Until every last child is asleep”

Then the nurse noticed the father
Trying to choke back the things he now felt
So mentioning she had to continue her rounds
She quietly excused herself

So he was now alone in the darkness
Between the past and future caught
Not knowing what to do
As his mind flooded with so many thoughts

Some beauty comes too early
While its moment never waits
And some beauty is always there
But never seen, till it’s too late

Look! There is a moment
It has just slipped away
And so we lose our lives
In such ordinary ways

Where do we get our dreams from?
Where do we get our faith?
Is it something that we are born with
Or is it something for which we must wait?

The mist of things we once believed
The childhood truths for which we grieve
And in our lives could we have missed
Those that in the dark, the angels kiss


<h4>What Child Is This</h4>
What child is this
Who laid to rest
That I now find here sleeping?
Do angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?

Could this be Christ the King
Whose every breath the angels bring?
Could this be the face of God, this child, the son I once carried?

What child is this
Who is so blessed he changes all tomorrows?
Replacing tears with reborn years
In hearts once dark and hollow

Could this be Christ the King
Whose every breath the angels bring?
Could this be the face of God, this child, the son I once carried?

In the dead of the night
As his life slips away
As he reads by the light
Of a star faraway

Holding on
Holding off
Holding out
Holding in

Could you be this old
And have your life just begin?

Reading by the light of a lost Christmas Day
It begins

Reading by the light of a lost Christmas Day
Tell me how many times can this story be told
After all of these years it should all sound so old
But it somehow rings true in the back of my mind
As I search for a dream that words can no longer define

Reading by the light of a lost Christmas Day
And the time
Reading by the light of a lost Christmas Day

And the time and the years
And the tears and the cost
And the hopes and the dreams
Of each child that is lost
And the whisper of wings
In the cold winter’s air
As the snow it comes down
And visions appear everywhere

Reading by the light of a lost Christmas Day
In the air
Reading by the light of a lost Christmas Day

In the dead of the night
As his life slips away
As he reads by the light
Of a star faraway

Holding on
Holding off
Holding out
Holding in

Could you be this old
And have your life just begin

Reading by the light of a lost Christmas Day
It begins
Reading by the light of a lost Christmas Day
It begins
Reading by the light of a lost Christmas Day
It begins
Reading by the light of a lost Christmas Day
It begins

Looking at his son across the room
He feared to cross that divide
But how long could he stay in this dark
That allows us all to hide

Is there a wrong so great in life
That it undoes every good we’ve ever done
Is there an act so good it would undo all our wrongs
Every single one?

And in putting his whole
Life into this gesture
Would failing make it
Any lesser?

Then through the window he thought he saw
In the falling snow so near
The outline of his son’s mother’s face
But then it disappeared

It was only there for a second
And a second’s not long, but yet
It was enough to cause that man
To take that very first step

And that step was followed by another
In that room still lit so dim
And before he realized how far he had gone
His son was directly in front of him

Then the father noticed on the windowsill
An old photo that he long ago had seen
It was a picture of him and his wife
When they were both about nineteen

It was leaning against a folder
That said Property of the Deceased”
And underneath was his wife’s name
And the date it had been released

It was obviously her personal possessions
That had been given to his son
Because since he had left them all behind
The child was the only one

His son must have always kept it with him
For the folder was weathered and torn
And he must have gazed at that picture countless times
For it was also all tattered and worn

Then his son noticed him standing there
And from his task looked up
And then looked at the picture beside him
And that one look, was enough

He recognized it was his father
That was now standing there
And gave him a smile of pure love and forgiveness
And of the past, he did not care

He did not care where he had been
The whys, the wheres, the hows
He only cared that his father was there
Standing by him now

Then the father turned and walked across the room
Which by now had lost its distance
And went to the nearest incubator
And picked up a trembling infant

And with the child within his arms
He returned to his son
And all the pain within his soul
At that moment was undone

And he sat in the rocking chair beside him
With the life he had retrieved
And side-by-side together
They rocked all through that Christmas Eve

This night
We pray
Our lives will show

This dream he had
Each child
Still knows

We are waiting
We have not forgotten

On this night
On this night
On this night
On this very Christmas Night

Like the Sphinx knows silence
And the Pyramids know time
Like Sisyphus knew regret
As he thought about his crime

As Julius knew betrayal
As Judas knew the kiss
And David with his nervous hand
Knew when not to miss

And Helen in her blindness
Knew better how to touch
And Lincoln in his wisdom
Knew the angels in each of us

Like the Delphi knew tomorrow
Like crocodiles know the Nile
Like Michelangelo knew stone
A mother knows her baby’s smile

Then she placed her hands upon his lips
In something akin to a kiss
And in her arms he stayed asleep
As the night grew dark and the child dreamt deep

Different Wings