Poetry Space Christmas poems and reflections

At this time of year busy as it is I like to find time for some personal reflection of all that is good about this time of year for a non- believer like myself.

I like the connecting side of Christmas, spending time with family and dear friends, closing the doors, sitting rather too close to the fire and sharing memories, anecdotes and the occasional poems with everyone. I know there will be laughter, probably some tears as we remember the people no longer with us to share the fun and the warmth. I like also to think of people who may be spending this time alone and when the doors of the shops and cafes close find themselves without anyone to talk to.

It has become a tradition of Poetry Space to invite poems from Poetry Space supporters and others who have not visited before to be shared on this blog and I hope that over the next few days you'll send some in if you haven't already to be featured here.

I'll start everyone off with one from Mike Lee and add to it as the Christmas period progresses:

Home or Away?

At Yule, like the Magi, we three travellers usually fly far away

to distant lands. This year, we journeyed north through spray

and murk along a grumbling seasonal motorway,

resolved to try out Scotland’s ski-side slopes. 

Like Mr Toad we headed for freedom on an open snowy Highland

road and didn’t see the ice. Felt helpless as we slid and ended upside

down in frozen bracken. Powerless and peckish, we dined on left-over

picnic-crusts until a farmer’s chugging antique tractor towed us out.

“Welcome to our Highland Christmas. Everything is on the ‘hoose’,”

he said. So, while the local garage fixed our car, some thirty miles

away, we helped out with farm-yard chores and discovered that

counting sheep’s a routine day-time task, for some,

©Chris Sims

and mucking-out and milking can be much better fun

than accruing bumps and bruises on the piste-runs.

Driving south, along a January-salted motorway, it dawned on all

of us: instead of finding Santa on his camel at the swimming pool,

we’d stumbled, quite by chance, upon the real story with some

worldly angels, a star, a shepherd-innkeeper and a whole array

of beasts - including a donkey and a flock of sheep. So, next time

we’ll choose to stay at home with friends for both Yule and Hogmanay.  

© Mike Lee

Thanks Mike, Happy Christmas.

ANOTHER CHRISTMAS POEM

And this year will it all be the same?

Grey rain. Slow, dark days.

Too much to eat and drink.

Too much, then too little, to do.

In this hiatus between manic cold wet December

and miserable colder wetter January

will I find the space to cast off weariness

and mark another year lived and learned from?

Will I be able to sleep deeply and dream contentedly?

Will I find fellow-feeling with friends and family

both near and far?

Will we be warm and welcoming;

will we sing and dance and celebrate?

Yes – for I know that I love

and am loved; and this is the light.

This is the light that we create for ourselves

in the darkest of times, however heavy the heart.

So yes, I answer myself. Yes!

This year, it will all be the same.

 © Jo Waterworth

Thanks Jo, for your poem

and good wishes.

Susan Jane Sims