Monday, December 16, 2019

Christmas Poems 2019


This is my fourth (kind of) annual Christmas Poem post. I never got around to writing one last year You can read the others here:


And on a related note, last year’s Christmas Carol post.

Other posts on Christmas:


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Let’s get things started with this jem from the incomparable Emily Dickinson, one of my favorite poets. Few poets can capture the details of nature in such brilliant fashion, and this poem exhibits her talent at its best. Most of my life, I have lived in places without show (well, except for that freak storm in 1999…), but I remember those few years living in the mountains with fondness. (And we still go places with snow, of course.) See if this poem doesn’t bring to life the amazing reality of a fresh snowfall. 

It sifts from Leaden Sieves -
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road -

It makes an even Face
Of Mountain, and of Plain -
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again -

It reaches to the Fence -
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces -
It deals Celestial Vail

To Stump, and Stack - and Stem -
A Summer’s empty Room -
Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them -

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen -
Then stills it’s Artisans - like Ghosts -
Denying they have been -

A hike in the woods during a snowstorm.
 Sequoia National Park, May 2019

This next poem was one I discovered just a few months ago, while reading the sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay. That whole collection was a revelation, and rapidly became one of my favorite volumes. 

Millay wasn’t particularly religious, but wrote on religious themes. This one really hit home for me, where Christmas is everywhere and in one’s face, but little of Christ can be seen, particularly from those who speak his name the loudest. Christ has become a prop, an idol to be used to justify cruelty and hate. 

The sonnet form is used to perfect effect by Millay. The first quatrain encapsulates the commercialism contrasting with the reality of the first Christmas. The second is a snapshot of the fake religiosity that ignores the gospel. I can’t decide if the preacher is part of the problem or just ignored. “Honey and steel” certainly seems like the worst of professional preachers. The shift then occurs in line nine, as it should. The two tercets present the devastating reality. Nobody listens; the words mean less than the wind. Christ is in effect, dead, as he has had no effect. It’s not very optimistic, to say the least. But it sure fits our own times. 

To Jesus on His Birthday

For this your mother sweated in the cold,
A paper wreath; a day at home for me.
The merry bells ring out, the people kneel;
Up goes the man of God before the crowd;
With voice of honey and with eyes of steel
He drones your humble gospel to the proud.
Are all your words to us you died to save.
O Prince of Peace! O Sharon's dewy Rose!
How mute you lie within your vaulted grave.
Is back upon your mouth these thousand years.

This next poem is an excerpt from a longer poem. A MUCH longer poem. As in, about two thirds the size of Paradise Lost. I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but now I really want to. This particular part really spoke to me. W. H. Auden paints such a realistic picture of the post-Christmas experience. I can’t even decide what I like best. Maybe the “we have seen the actual Vision and failed /  To do more than entertain it as an agreeable / Possibility” line? Or the part about going back to materialistic assumptions? Or perhaps the last few lines. Hot dang, those are good. This is just a great poem, any way you slice it.  

Excerpt from For the Time Being

Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes –
Some have got broken – and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week –
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted – quite unsuccessfully –
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry
And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It. 

I’m going to call my choice of four poems a tradition. Hey, four years is enough to make a tradition, right? I’ll end with Paul Laurence Dunbar. After the kind of bitter taste of the two preceding poems, Dunbar’s exuberance and joy is refreshing. This, despite living in less-than-ideal circumstances. (Despite his education and obvious talent, he had to work as an elevator operator most of his life - Jim Crow and racism in action.) This is the ultimate hope of Christmas - that one day, all will be restored, healed, and made new. Ring out, ye bells indeed!  

Christmas Carol

  Ring out, ye bells!
   All Nature swells
With gladness at the wondrous story,—
   The world was lorn,
   But Christ is born
To change our sadness into glory.

   Sing, earthlings, sing!
   To-night a King
Hath come from heaven's high throne to bless us.
   The outstretched hand
   O'er all the land
Is raised in pity to caress us.

   Come at his call;
   Be joyful all;
Away with mourning and with sadness!
   The heavenly choir
   With holy fire
Their voices raise in songs of gladness.

   The darkness breaks
   And Dawn awakes,
Her cheeks suffused with youthful blushes.
   The rocks and stones
   In holy tones
Are singing sweeter than the thrushes.

   Then why should we
   In silence be,
When Nature lends her voice to praises;
   When heaven and earth
   Proclaim the truth
Of Him for whom that lone star blazes?

   No, be not still,
   But with a will
Strike all your harps and set them ringing;
   On hill and heath
   Let every breath
Throw all its power into singing!


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