A Kapoho Christmas
It was Christmas without lights.
It was Christmas without indoor plumbing.
It was Christmas without carolers at the window
Muffed and warm under falling snow.
But there was Christmas.
A Christmas program at school
The Holy Night reenacted:
White tissue paper glued on spines of coconut fronds
Shaped as angel wings and haloes.
Long white robes, over bare feet.
The plantation manager with bagfuls of assorted hard candies
His annual role in the village where he reigned.
Fathers in Sunday best
After a hard day’s work in sugar cane fields.
Mothers in dresses fashioned after Sears catalogs.
Children, restless, on wooden benches,
Waiting for Santa’s jolly Ho Ho Ho.
A fir tree from the hills,
Needles not lasting 24 hours.
Chains from construction paper,
Origami balls and strands of tin-foiled tinsel.
Kerosene and gas lamps
Moving shadows on the walls.
It was not the Christmas of my dreams.
No carolers at the window,
Singing Silent Night, Holy Night.
No large presents under a real Christmas tree
No fireplaces and rooftop chimneys.
No blue-eyed boy handing me hot chocolate.
For 18 years, the true Christmas
Lived in my head until Madame Pele
Came to my rescue
And buried our kerosene lamps.
Finally! I said, without a backward glance,
Running out fast in bare feet
On unpaved roads
To the Christmas of my dreams.
From Echoes of Kapoho by Frances Kakugawa
Watermark Publishing 2019
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