The Christmas Box

I - Gift shop

Shot glasses, snow globes, tee shirts
All in bright disarray.
Celebrate Cape Breton with candles
Post cards, cup and saucer,
Driftwood sculpture and dolls.
Each bears the tiny label
"Made in China".

Further back, the local artist prints, 
Tartan blankets, dish towels, blown glass,
Pewter mussels, soap and shortbread tins.

A side door.  An office? No.
Dusty windows, faint smell of oil,
Port hole window frames 
lean against the walls
Piled with ship's wheels, sail cloth, buoys.

A wooden table down the middle is piled
With hardware pulled from boats like pirate trophies:
Hand tools, pulleys, signs, door knobs,
Cleats, rails, deck-plates, hooks and eyes.
Copper, steel and bronze.

Amid this seaman's hoard, a box 
the size of a pocket.
Brass like his brothers on the table.
Embossed with a delicate princess in profile
And the year- 1914.

II Little Mary

"I want you now to help me to send a Christmas present 
from the whole of the nation
to every sailor afloat and every soldier at the front. 
I am sure that we should all be happier to feel that we had helped to send 
our little token of love and sympathy on Christmas morning, 
something that would be useful and of permanent value, 
and the making of which  may be the means of providing employment
in trades adversely affected by the war. 
Could there be anything more likely to hearten them 
in their struggle than a present received 
straight from home on Christmas Day?"

Little Mary, blithe teenager, wanted to help.
Princess Royal, ready to spend her allowance
for the good of the nation.
How many now at the front? 

Tobacco, cigarettes, candy or spices.
Our friends – France, Russia, Belgium
Servia, Japan, Little Montenegro.
And, of course, Imperium Britannicum.
Christmas greetings from the King and Queen.
Portrait of Princess Mary. Dressed in white, she  looks over her shoulder.

III Empire and Commonwealth

Empire and Commonwealth.
How came this box to Cape Breton?

Soldier in the muddy trench hears 
Football in the no man's land on Christmas Day.
The Welch singing carols across lines.
Did he tuck it in his blouse to keep his tobacco dry?

Or sailor in the great iron heart
Plunging through the sea,
Did he think of breakers on the shores of Cape Breton 
and the lonely Highlands above the cliffs?

"This will be a good thing to remember by, 
when this war is forgotten.”
Puts it up in iron ribs 
above the tool bench - 
For safekeeping.

IV Current contents

One penny – 1918
Georgivs Dei Gra. Brit.Omn:Rex Fid.Def.Ind.Imp

It is said when Russia exiles came to England, they wept when they met His Majesty.
Such was the likeness of these cousins – George and Nicky.

Britannia holds her trident and shield, 
looks to the sea.
Her dominions at her feet.

20 Cents 1919
Regno Italia
War upon war.
The armistice bred revolution, civil war,
Blackshirts in the making.
El Duce considers socialism
but he is drawn to the drama of the right.
Seeds scattered in the trench mud.


Fünf und zehn pfennig, 1912 and 1914.
Worthless in a decade, but for now tobacco und ein bier.
The eagle spreads his wings , Deutches Reich
The crown floats overhead.
Als eine sind wir stark.

Dark round copper
2 Kopecks 1912
The double eagle screams and screams.
For Czar and country, they ran across the open fields.
Exultant, right up to the moment 
when the German machine guns opened up.
Felled like winter wheat.

And the last, the very last.
Metal disk, two holes: one for him 
and one for his country.

ORIN H. LOVELY  PVT.  U.S.A.
2785618.
The wide potato fields between the forest edges, 
of the Cascades hulking in the sky, 
which did he miss more?

The rusted helmet hung in the woodshed gloom.
High up on a nail.
When they left the farm, 
I gathered it up and took it home.
My own war trophy.

The dent in the front?
„He got that pulling a buddy back into a trench.“ the story went.

Maybe.
He survived, anyway.  
Came home.
Bought a farm. 
Got married. 
Raised a family.

Did he ever remember the white flares over no man's land?
Was his sleep disturbed by the chugging of machine gun 
or  thump of Thor's hammer as the artillery walked into their trenches?

V
Somewhere the wind blows across the lea and the flowers move.
The dark sea rises and falls upon itself, one wave and many.
The rain drips from the evergreens and the streams gurgle in the moss.

As it always has.