So many Christmas poems from which to choose. E U Fanthrope’s lines:
And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.
And always, but I won’t quote it again, the greatest Christmas poem of all, T S Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Magi.’ Go and google it.
I particularly like the Roman poet Martial’s begging letter to a rich friend:
For New Year, Postumus, ten years ago,
You sent me four pounds of good silver-plate.
The next year, hoping for a rise in weight
(For gifts should either stay the same or grow),
I got two pounds. The third and fourth produced
Inferior presents, and the fifth year’s weighed
Only a pound – Septicius’ work, ill-made
Into the bargain. Next I was reduced
To an eight-ounce oblong salad-platter; soon
It was a miniature cup that tipped the scales
At even less. A tiny two-ounce spoon
Was the eighth year’s surprise. The ninth, at length,
And grudgingly, disgorged a pick for snails
Lighter than a needle. Now, I note, the tenth
Has come and gone with nothing in its train.
I miss the old four pounds. Let’s start again!
But another poem this year has got into my head. It is James Merrill’s beautiful shape poem ‘Christmas Tree’:
To be
Brought down at last
From the cold sighing mountain
Where I and the others
Had been fed, looked after, kept still,
Meant, I knew – of course I knew –
That it would be only a matter of weeks,
That there was nothing more to do.
Warmly they took me in, made much of me.
The point from the start was to keep my spirits up.
I could assent to that. For honestly,
It did help to be wound in jewels, to send
Their colors flashing forth from vents in the deep
Fragrant sables that cloaked me head to foot.
Over me then they wove a spell of shining –
Purple and silver chains, eavesdripping tinsel,
Amulets, milagros: software of silver,
A heart, a little girl, a Model T,
Two staring eyes. Then angels, trumpets, BUD and BEA
(The children’s names) in clownlike capitals,
Somewhere a music box whose tiny song
Played and replayed I ended before long
By loving. And in shadow behind me, a primitive IV
To keep the show going. Yes, yes, what lay ahead
Was clear: the stripping, the cold street, my
chemicals
Plowed back into the Earth for lives to come –
No doubt a blessing, a harvest, but one that doesn’t bear,
Now or ever, dwelling upon. To have grown so thin.
Needles and bone. The little boy’s hand meeting
About my spine. The mother’s voice: Holding up wonderfully!
No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning. Today’s
Dusk room aglow
For the last time
With candlelight.
Faces love-lit,
Gifts underfoot.
Still to be so poised, so
Receptive. Still to recall, to praise.
This poem, you will see, is not about a joyous birth but about death. The American poet Merrill was dying of AIDS – a few weeks to live – when he wrote it. Read it with that in mind – the vividness of life, the last remaining delights of being made much of, but at last the sure knowledge of final disembodiment. To me it is an extraordinary poem. The best poetry does not flinch from the deepest realities. Not far up the road from Bethlehem lies Golgotha.
