Christmas Tree Soliloquy

(to Shakespeare's Hamlet soliloquy "To be, or not to be.")

To keep, or not to keep—that is the question
Whether tis nobler in the home to coddle
The tree and needles, an indulgent notion
Or to take balm of season, toss on rubble,
And through removing it, end all. I cry, I weep—
I mourn—to toss the tree, to say “the end.”
A friend once... now this vacant seasonal spot,
Twas such a nice view. Aid of supplication,
Tow’ring in its stand. Oh fie! So sweet—
It greets—the branches gleam. No, not a shrub.
There in that glow of green, those dreams did come
When we saw parcels tucked, hid under foil,
That hope I saw. Here I reject
Our 'toss a holiday with speed," brief life.
So vile to trim the tree and short its time.
A December song, the fat man’s approved scene,
The bulbs of divine glow, the light display,
The incidents of glitter, and the paws
So playful, bat at all the low dangling bait.
Doth glee, itself, sleep past holiday date
In a box, packed in? Doth this symbol scare?
Let stand and tend past the ordained date!
Deny the dread of keeping after time.
For understanding, hear me. For what law
Says send the tree to die? Puzzles me still.
Why break this evergreen whose ills are none?
Must throw out, brothers? What's this thought made of?
Its presents, tree kept us happiest toward all,
And to the tree, adieu? Sad resolution
Plays empty chord of the days past, the blot
On saddened eyes that once bright for moment,
With lights, a star... their joy now tossed away,
And sits on frozen pavement--- See how now
The year is calling you, “Come to my horizon
But lose that tree you tended.”