Christmas Alone

I set out two days before Christmas

To beach-walk the holidays through,

Bunking with twenty-three strangers

Who relished to be alone too.

 

Happy with nature’s fine company,

No need for the trappings of home,

We twenty-four souls would be grateful –

Together by being on our own.

 

Well, nothing is quite as expected:

Twenty-three souls having fun

Belonged each to couples and families;

I, the sole party of one.

 

I left on the day before Christmas

Not onward, but back to the start

To friends, Swiss and English and German

Prior with whom I did part.

 

A Christmas Day dinner of pasta

Instead of dried fruit on its own,

And a table of young solo travelers

Who thought they’d spend Christmas alone.

***

Merry Christmas, wherever you are, whoever you’re with.  – D.