'Twas the Night Before Christmas - revisited

Hello dear readers - it is that time of year when (in our part of the world anyway) we focus on the Christmas season, the holidays, and the new year. I have a cousin in France who, though now retired, spent most of his career working around the world as a senior bureaucrat with both the International Red Cross and the United Nations. As his contribution to Christmas 2009, he "did a number" on the ubiquitous poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas". With his permission, I share it here because, in my mind, it says so much:

I had a dream…

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all ‘round the Earth
the cannons were silent, the smog had dispersed.
The writers and activists were leaving their jails
and liberated women had cast off their veils.
The curates, the imams, the monks and the priests
were embracing the godless as they joined in their feasts
while windmills rivalled with minarets and steeples
to bring a message of light to the peoples.
All the world’s politicians had unanimously agreed
to promote the Declaration of Human Rights as their creed,
to ban racism, intolerance, torture and war
and live peacefully together forever more…
So I snuggled while sugarplums danced in my head
…and then I woke up and it was all still ahead.
George Gordon-Lennox

The best to everyone this year!

Peter