Warming each other’s hands on this cold star,
Ringing a certain day with a wreath of holly,
Joining lips under pallid green berries,
Packing love in paper-covered surprises,
We celebrate the coming of our Saviour.
Saved by the blood spilt on a Roman cross,
Insured by water dropping from a shell,
Revitalised by late-night confessional,
Calmed by choir-boys televising carols,
We cleanse ourselves from sin and feel no loss.
Feeling no loss we bury the tinselled tree,
Take down the bent cards, observe no pain,
Only the usual bouts of indigestion,
Make turkey soup, and tear the last days
From the calendar; there was no ecstasy.
There was no ecstasy for the mother in the dark,
Only a grumbling terror and the dull ache
Of an overburdened body like a sack
And sagging disappointment and the track
Of blood where birth was; except for the lark,
The lark that rose unseasonably from its nest,
Fluttered above the stable, trembled into the thin
White winter air and began singing
With wonder at nothing more than its own being.
The mother felt wings opening in her breast.
The bird’s being the bird’s being in song
Was what she heard behind her baby’s cries;
She held his live hands; our hands hold lives
And tools and instruments and ecstasies,
Warmed on this cold star where we belong.
� Sylvia Read
Warmed on this Cold Star
Sylvia Read