Twas the night before Christmas<\/p>\n
and all through St. Joes.<\/p>\n
The patients were sleeping<\/p>\n
with hall lights aglow.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Medication were given<\/p>\n
and rounds were all done.<\/p>\n
All patients were counted<\/p>\n
each and every one.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Patients were all snuggled<\/p>\n
with clean sheets on their beds.<\/p>\n
While visions of old days<\/p>\n
danced in their heads.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When what to our wondering<\/p>\n
eyes should appear.<\/p>\n
But an angel descending<\/p>\n
to release each one’s fears.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the twinkling of an eye<\/p>\n
she started to soar<\/p>\n
while singing each name<\/p>\n
visiting door after door.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Now Wilson and Shuman<\/p>\n
and Berdych and Row.<\/p>\n
And Whistler and Connor<\/p>\n
and on and on she\u2019d go<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
From room 501<\/p>\n
and clear down the hall.<\/p>\n
Her wings pitter-pattered<\/p>\n
as she visited them all.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Then she rounded our desk<\/p>\n
where no one could speak.<\/p>\n
Each one of us frozen<\/p>\n
our legs limb and weak.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She blew us fond kisses<\/p>\n
and spoke kindly to all.<\/p>\n
For caring for patients<\/p>\n
No matter the call.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Then suddenly we watched her<\/p>\n
as she traveled on down.<\/p>\n
With shimmers of glory,<\/p>\n
that lightened her gown.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Then as we went forward<\/p>\n
doing rounds for the day,<\/p>\n
For some reason, her words<\/p>\n
continued to replay.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Lord wants to thank you<\/p>\n
for all that you do.<\/p>\n
As He wishes Merry Christmas<\/p>\n
to each one of You!\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
by Del Bates<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Twas the night before Christmas and all through St. Joes. The patients were sleeping with hall lights aglow. Medication were given and rounds were all done. All patients were counted each and every one. Patients were all snuggled with clean sheets on their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1452,"featured_media":74172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13,1136,441,5],"tags":[2228,3442],"class_list":["post-73780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-miscellaneous","category-official-marathon-prompts","category-poetry-prompt-responses","category-poetry-prompts","tag-2017poetrymarathon","tag-2020poetrymarathon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1452"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73780"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74197,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73780\/revisions\/74197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}