A Christmas Poem About a Nice Day
Just the story of a very nice day saving Santa, fighting unicorn slayers and turning into dinosaurs.
A Nice Day (Dec 28, 2021)
“Walk like me,” I say. I start
galloping sideways, and J
does it, too. We clip down the
sidewalk before she says, “Let’s just
walk normally.” And then:
“Santa needs us.”
Obviously,
we hurry.
At the park, J leads me onto the
muddy grass. I gesture at all the
dry leaves strewn across the blades.
“There was a fight,” I say. “Look at all these
hoofprints.”
“Let’s follow them,” J says, and
we do until we come upon a
sapling tied to a stake.
“Santa!” J says. She frees him, but we
still can’t find the reindeer.
“To the tower!” That's my idea. Up the
jungle gym we go, but I’m too big to
scale the rope ladder. So J must go to the
tippy top all by herself.
“I found them!” She says. From below,
I can peek at how she kneels in
front of the matching game up there.
“Here’s Comet!" J cries. She completes a pair. “And
Dasher and Joopid and Donnen and Blitzer!”
But we still can’t find
Rudolph. So we consider the landscape.
“Let’s ask the polar bear,” I say. We use the
slides to dismount then run across the sand to
sit astride the plastic hippopotamus. J makes
binoculars with her hands, searching for
Rudolph’s red light.
“Did you look behind us?” I ask. She
twists around and gasps, “Oh no! The
unicorn slayer!” Yes, the very one who
haunts the canal behind the park.
We can’t waste time! We run across the
wet grass and through the alley.
“Don’t step on the cracks,” J says, “The
ice will break!”
I tiptoe around the puddles. I warn: “Don’t
fall in. The ocean is so cold!”
At the canal, J runs across the
bridge and back in under 10 seconds; I
count. When she returns, she has a
potion to turn us into dinosaurs.
“I’m a stegosaurus!” I say. I swing the
two badminton rackets I've been carrying like spikes.
“I’m a mosasaurus,” J says. She
swims while I swing my tails, but she’s
disheartened.
“Where is Rudolph?” she asks me. That’s when I
spy something red on the playground. I point out the
two steering wheels on the equipment.
“Spin them,” J says.
“Faster,” I say.
We step back, watching them
burble and wobble back into stillness.
“Did we help Santa?” she asks.
We look around, and then I see them—
across the street and triumphant on the
lawn—Santa and all his reindeer with Rudolph!
“You did it!” I cheer, and J is just so
darned delighted.
Then we play badminton on
the sidewalk. We play under the
gray clouds and the raindrops that
follow. We play until the light
beats the darkness back leaving a
rainbow to guide us home.
—by Sarah Dzida (written Dec 28, 2021)
Author’s Note: Happy holidays! See you in 2023.