1954 Christmas Card

In case you can’t read the text in the Christmas card, Kate’s poem follows the image.

Kate’s 1954 Christmas Poem

Our greetings this year come from farther away
    Than the southernmost state where we live,
For British Honduras just now is our home,
    As you'll learn from this short narrative.
We came to Belize for "a couple of months"
    The first of the year---and we stayed,
For the Colony's growing: its future looks bright;
    And a tropical life can be made.
We live in a house with a steep, bright pink roof,
    Green shutters and white picket fence.
It's perched high on stilts like most others in town
    As a sort of high-water defense.
The natives speak Creole, a rhythmical tongue,
    Illegitimate offspring of English,
And we find that our children are picking up
    Just a little bit faster than we wish.
Their a's have grown broader, they sing every word,
    And end with a rising inflection.
They query, "Na-trúe?"; and take drings of "wa-tér";
    "Hail" their friends; and insist, "You vex me, Mon!"

When we think of Belize, these are some of the things
    Which most quickly occur to our minds…
Narrow streets; donkey carts and meandering bikes
    Dodging thin, scrawny fowl of all kinds;
In the harbor the sailboats unload coconuts
    Brought in every day from the Cayes;
And the fishermen daily sail out to the reef
    For there's always a brisk, steady breeze;
Mahogany rafts---each some hundreds of logs---
    Float down-river from up-country forests,
And the wood which at home is so terribly choice
    Is plain every-day lumber to Colonists;
The wash bleaches white in the tropical sun
    On the poorest of lines or the richest;
And the pollywogs swim past the green slimy trash
    In the streets' always-flooded side ditches;
You can buy Spanish bread or sweet mangoes in season
    From hawkers who call out their things---
Fresh fruit, or live turkeys, a monkey, or eggs,
    Baby parrots, or jaguar skins.

We all love Belize; it's a quaint, quiet town.
    The people are friendly and kind.
We'll be home afterwhile; in the meantime we hope
    That through the New Year you will find…
		HEALTH
		WEALTH
		HAPPINESS