This gift I wish to give you…, draft no. 3
This gift choosing
is so hard
You can’t imagine how long it took me
while I stood in the aisle
of Target. Or was it
Marshalls? Or was it Hobby Lobby? Or—
I’ve been to so many
I can’t say exactly --wherever it was I spent
an hour--
I think it might have been more than an
hour--
shopping for you
because I love you and I have never had
the words to show it.
But this Christmas, after pausing so long in
the aisle of whatever store that was
I brought the gift home
(actually,
I had purchased two
to
hedge my bets
because
more than anything I really wished
to
give you the gift you really wanted,
the
gift that you wouldn’t take back
the
gift that had
your
name already written on it)
and when I brought the bag home
with these gifts
that I had more than enough
money to buy, I realized
that they would rust and crumble,
lose their curb appeal,
before the wrappers even hit
the floor
I took one back
[long pause]
and gave the other
I really wanted you to have the gift
you wanted
Why was I so sad that I could not
give that to you,
when the season I am celebrating
is about a gift that was so perfect,
so well-fitting, so true
and good and permanent
that it would never cross your mind to
refuse it, if you saw it the way it is?
I don’t know if there is a possibility
of a chance that anyone,
if they saw the gift as it truly is,
would turn it away without knowing they
had turned away their very soul
I can’t give you the gift
that I want you to have,
but I know who can
