20151122 (Christmas giving)

It’s that time of year when you

Get zillions thousands hundreds

OK about fifty letters from many

Worthy charities it seems like more

Since they come in a batch with

Appeals for campaign funds open

Season of health benefit signups

Requests to subscribe to Consumer

Reports Woodworkers Journal

Apparently the people at Field 

And Stream thought it best to

Give me up after thirty forty 

Years of faithful solicitation

Scientific American let my 

Subscription lapse without a

Reminder as did Popular Science

They’re not the problem it’s

Having to decide how much I

Can spare how large this year’s

Philanthropy will be if I look

Realistically at the likelihood

Of my needing the money

More than these others in the

Next year it’s probably better

I keep every buck in a mattress 

Under a rock in the bank vested 

In those low interest cds where 

They won’t take your firstborn 

If you withdraw a dime prematurely

Mutual funds pretend to be all

Purpose and relatively safe but

They have these huge fees and I

Remember two-thousand eight

Two thousand nine where the 

Quarterly letters kept getting 

Drastically lighter remembering

Those times perhaps it is best

To let Heifer International send

Some Somalian a pregnant goat

Vietnamese some ducklings I

Know they don’t always do that

With my money just like lots 

Of others don't support a kid

In Ecuador for thirty-five cents 

A day you’ve got to believe that

They’re actually making your

Money work to bring good to the

Poor whichever way they do it

Google charity evaluators and 

Everybody’s got a different

Method the Wall Street Journal

Offers to evaluate the evaluators

So it’s a crapshoot it might be 

Better to give the funds locally

Your church your alma mater

Some places where you can easily

Monitor their activity endowments

Trusts have the problem of management

Some you trust this year but last

Year’s guys were bums then there’s

Always the guy with the kettle outside

The supermarket ringing a bell

There’s got to be a seal on the

Kettle that they check every time

He turns it in right

c. J.S.Manista, 2015