Xmas Wrapup

'Twas the night after Christmas and all through the day
There were signs that the children had done more than play.
Of the living room rug we had long since lost sight
As its burden of paper grew, morning till night.
And the ribbons and bows that had graced every gift
Lay scattered and splattered, too many to lift,
And to tell who gave what we were no longer certain
Except when a label popped out from a curtain.
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall
There was plastic and paper and boxes and all.

With his motions impeded by oceans of plastic
The Grinch who lives with us might do something drastic,
Absent some effort to clean up the place,
To pick up the boxes, to clear out some space.

He no sooner had vowed not to do it himself,
When someone stepped forward: a right jolly elf,
And smiling and waving, she came on the scene
With a sack she held tight that was plastic and green,
Then she spoke not a word but went straight to the floor
And she picked up the papers, the ribbons and more
And she stuffed the sack with them and giving a nod,
Handed them off to her deer partner, T__d.

It was good while it lasted, but far from complete,
For the plastic still catches the old Grinch's feet
There are pieces of toys that belong in a box
That somehow get caught in the toes of his socks,
And sharp things that pierce through the sole or the heel
That none but the Grinch who lives with us can feel,
And things that are larger and easy to trip
And fracture a thigh or a hip or a lip.
Though no one else sees them the Grinch knows they're there,
So he's painting a sign, "Let the traveler beware".
And he's staying confined to his dark, tiny room,
For no matter how dank or how musty the gloom,
He prefers to be thought somewhat iconoclastic
To ending his days as the victim of plastic.