An occasional poem for Christmas

In the bleak midwinter

I remember when we walked in that day that
lengthened straight from dawn to dusk, and
we collected wood along the path, loading
the pushchair

frosty wind made moan

Well, no, it didn’t, it was still, but cold
in a straight-in-your face way, like
the beginnings of a pub fight, and
some people walked past us and one said:
‘so, gathering winter
fewel’, with that Wenceslas style of
few-el

earth stood hard as iron

Well, not really that either, that day, but
I can remember other days,
pre-Christmas days, post-Christmas days, where
the mother of mud is
tough but brittle like ...
like iron rust around etched
and frosted
panes of water

water like a stone

The freezer is accreting Christmas lists,
its whiteness etched
with thoughts of things to come,
little frozen moments of delight
that may stay that way or,
one day, silent and hidden, melt

snow had fallen, snow on snow

Yes, once it did from after the magic of Guy Fawkes
to the earnest nativity, and then the buttered light
light in the church where, with the passage of youth,
a quavering voice cracked on the top note of ‘Once in royal’,
yes, right there, in the heaven–composed,
face-solemnity of the knowing-eyed soloist,
who yet could still accept the virgin birth
with ease

snow on snow

hey, what did he know or could accept otherwise,
and Jesus
seemed just a brother or a dad or
some doppelganger, but Israel ...

Israel wasn’t
a people or a place - it was the story of the soul,
my soul,
your soul,
the story of its trial.
But that was ...

in the bleak midwinter
long ago