POEM OF THE MONTH

Norfolk Carol 1996: a triptych

1. Christmas Eve: 3pm. Viewing the village from a low hill by a derelict red barn.

The elements of Christmas -
Fire and ice -
In this tempered Arctic sun
That burns in the trees.
In these pools like skating rinks
Deep and dark and even.
Ice
In the flinty ground
And the bitter easterly.
Fire
In the solstice sunset
Bleeding the black woods
And its ice-pink afterglow
And its fire-blue areola.
Ice
I n the barn-wide rising moon.
Ice
In my soul as I turn
To the unlit wings
That cradle and grave
The sunset's light show.
Fire
In my soul
At a rising star
Burning like ice
In the polar blue.
Fire
In my hearth at home
(Crackling through logs),
In the farmer's field
(Roaring through twigs),
Red-raw and orange
Tongues of life-lust:
The vital,
Stripped down
Simplicities
Of winter.

2. December 23, 11 am, in the morning-after flat of the previous afternoon's star performer.

And the star of last night's show
after driving down High Street
well over the limit
though he'd drunk nothing
woke to the cold grey porridge light
of the Morning After
with nobody watching
switched on the telly
in search of his limelight,
got "Love For Sale"
the nation's mulled libido,
laughed,
"what do you want?
I mean
really
really
want?
what's a
Spice girl like you
doing
over-exposing yourself
in a place like this?"

meant,
"nice legs, baby,
shame
about
the
kick in the teeth."

meant,
"there's more to girl power
than pepsi and fun
'cause tonight is the night
when three become one..."

3. Christmas Eve 8 pm. Village carol singing, somewhere in time.

My daughter's dropped the torch
From iced fingers
Snowing the bulb
So the batteries don't connect
To its heart-warming glow
And we can't see the carol sheet...
Ah well, the wagon is hung with fairy lights
Frosted with moonshine
And we look like a Christmas card
And we finally get to the Promised Place -
(Not the Inn,
It's too crowded) -
A stable of prototypes:

Some faithful sheep farmers
With a vision of angels
If not of the road;

Three love-crazed riders
As seen on Look East
(Apocalypse On The Cards This Christmas)
On their secret back way
From the moon to Norwich
Between deadstalked fields
With mud-chastened pasture
Lying low,
Shoots of corn the green
Green used to be
When the world was young,
And winter-silent
Norfolk-afternoon flint villages
Glinting in between
Like texts of mediaeval Latin;

An unmarried mother
With a "lily-white"
King Herod of Sleaze
Biting her back,
Her face pure as Venus,
Her faithful Joe
Not quite the winner
Her parents had hoped for;

And tucked out of sight
Behind a bottle bank -
A babe in a crib.

The outlook
None too bright
As I lift our broken lamp
And the brass strikes off
And my voice stumbles in flight
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light,
The hopes and fears
Of all the years

Are met in thee tonight.

© Gareth Calway, December 2001