Book of Christmas

A week to Christmas

Cards of snow and holly

Gimcracks in the shops

Wishes and memories wrapped in tissue paper

Trinkets, gadgets and lollipops

As is through coloured glasses we remember the childhood thrill

Waking in the morning to the rustling of paper

The eiderdown heaped in a hill

Of dogs and bears and bricks and apples

The feeling that Christmas Day was a coral island in time

Where we land and eat our lotus

But where we can never stay

There was a star in the east

The Magi in their turbans brought their luxury toys

In homage to the child born to capsize their values

And wreck their equipoise

A smell of hay, like peace in the dark stable

Not peace, however, but a sword

To cut the Gordian Knot of logical self-interest

The fool-proof golden cord

For Christ walked in where philosophers tread

But armed with more than folly

Making the smooth place rough

And knocking the heads of church and state together

In honour of whom

We have taken over the pagan Saturnalia for our annual treat

Letting the belly have its say

Ignoring the spirit while we eat

And conscience still goes crying through the desert

With sackcloth round his loins

A week to Christmas

Hark the Herald Angels beg for copper coins