It’s a little town
that comes to life only once a year—
just three cheerful buildings
that look like they’re made
of gingerbread and white icing,
set down carefully along the edge of a fireplace mantle.
The miniature snow men and snow women stroll
between the bakery and the post office,
their arms filled with the most delightful gifts.
Then past Santa’s workshop
where a plaster reindeer and polar bear,
both wearing red Santa hats,
nuzzle each other
knee deep in spun snow,
and colored lights sparkle in
the puffy drifts, tiny fallen stars.
Santa, with his lumpy sack of toys,
stands like a cut-out Christmas cookie
on the roof of the post office,
always the jolly, benevolent guardian,
while two Dr. Seuss trees
with gold stars on top
are frozen in a perpetual sway
in a town where there is no cold wind or sky
and the cotton candy snow never melts,
nor do the snow people
who stay eternally optimistic,
bundled up in hand painted hats and scarves,
as they wait patiently for that famous elf
to come down off the roof.

Johanna Ely is Benicia’s current poet laureate.

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