They politely exercise their prero
-gatives by sitting on our beds
when we crack open an urgent
eye to begin the day. They come
to us in each piece of wrapping
paper and gift, the stockings on
the mantelpiece breaking open
wounds and joys and hurts and
crazy memories of floundering
————
in snow, or singing hymns in
a cold church, with a blowing
organ reviving the hearts and
hearing their voices we may be
gladdened or grown disturbed.
—————
They are there in the mince pies
and tight waist bands, the sixpence
in the pudding or watching from
the tree where the wrinkled tinsel
is worn thin with long use. By the
———–
glass of wine another one waits
and smiles at the champagne, for
those bubbles are surely as old
as the hills, and blind us to every
old ill; that comes with those thin
faces from yesterday’s Christmases.
They seldom stay long; but enough
to raise merry memories, or of a
heart burnt in the flames, not of
candles,
but
of life’s random acts of cruelty.
