Here you are at last my mysterious friend,
said the wise man as his strange red, white and sooty guest
emerged from the hearth his heavy sack laden,
dragging behind oddly alive, morphing shape, wanting to express.

What have you brought?  
Well, what have you asked for?
I never ask for anything because though I have heard of you
you’ve yet to arrive at Yuletide as imagined.
So my wishes have always melted into dreams diaphanous
For I find it best to simply muse,
not to expect or hope for the unlikely.

Well, said the guest, unlikely is now here,
and we shall unwrap gifts of muse this eve.
We shall expect nothing but delight by firelight.
You know, don't you, sir,
That I just squeezed my considerable Self
and the enormity of my bag’s unconscious accoutrement
Through the liminal space of your narrow chimney,
Yet not a single flame burned me?

And so the two old fellows sat and  spoke of dreams and images
memories before time without definitions
and the flames slowly waned as midnight passed toward the dawn.
They danced on a feather toward sleep
when the mysterious guest woke with a start.

I must be off, he said,
to tend the soul of the world.
It needs the salve of its own sweet tears
which I just happen to carry in this heavy parcel of my heart.

But don’t leave yet, the host exclaimed.
First you must sign my guest book
everybody does, even strangers,
and especially one I never expected to meet
who comes unbidden with messages
I am left to translate with the secret alchemy of myths yet written.

Then show me where it is,
your library is so immense
tomes everywhere I look.
Don’t you see it there by the mantle,
that great leather volume.
You can’t miss it, it’s big and all in red,
Oh, yes, that’s the one I’d love to have you sign.
Then I can remember you visited this magical night
and though nobody might believe it
I will know you were here
if only for a moment
by firelight.