“O wad some power the giftie gie us/To see oursels as ithers see us!” Robert Burns, from “To a Louse”

“giftie noun/Scottish/gift; faculty” Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary

it is a season to trade gifts/to show appreciation/to bring a one that fair uplifts/and brightens an occasion

my lovely donna waits for me/in faraway toledo/which is excruciatingly/like penguins in a speedo

i bought her something just today/a tiny bonsai tree/placed in a vessel made of clay/made recently by me

the man will take my pot and then/with elbow grease, good people/contrive to drill and grind and spend/himself to make a weep-hole

so keep your fingers crossed, good friends/in hopes there is no cracking/and that this venture hap’ly ends/in joy and fun unlacking

and that we follow well the rules/and keep the wee tree healthy

and with the years contentment fuels/a trove that’s truly wealthy.

..

Afterword: There is a Donna in Toledo, Ohio, waiting for me, whom I am immensely proud to call my Sweetheart. I will be uprooting myself from Phoenix and going cross-country to live with her, we hope forever, some months from now; but much sooner I am flying to Toledo to be with her for a few days, and we will exchange gifts. The bonsai merchant will have, by this time tomorrow, used a masonry drill and a grinder to put a weep-hole in the bottom of the triangular vessel I made some weeks ago. It is unlikely that I will be able to present the bonsai to Donna before I make the move, but it is already hers.