Holiday Poem from Mary Brunini McArdle

This holiday poem won an Honorable Mention in Traditional Poetry at the Alabama Conclave this year. (2007)

~ Mary Brunini McArdle

The Legend

of

The Christmas Kitten

Only the tabby was little enough
To burrow into the hay;
Donkeys and cows are much too large,
And the Baby’s feet were frightfully cold
Where Joseph put Him to stay;

Angels sang chorus and shepherds brought lambs,
As three kings knelt to pray;
Mary His Mother was quite worn out;
She attempted to swaddle His tiny limbs—
The covers kept slipping away;

But a long-ago kitten cared deeply enough
To ease the family’s way;
Offering the Child the warmth of its fur
In that freezing stable in Bethlehem
Where our Lord and Savior lay.

Mary then marked it with an “M,”
To commemorate that day;
Look hard and long and you’ll find it too,
For all cats are basically tabbies, somehow;
At least so the experts say.

Even the solids were blessed by her hand:
The blacks, the whites, and the grays;
No cat has escaped it, none is without it;
Subtle symbols on the front of their heads;
That initial’s there to stay;

“M’s” fixed between tiny pointed ears,
Made on that first Christmas day;
To last as long as all animal life--
And honor the common domestic cat
In this most harmonious way.


~happy holidays~