And in the classic hush fashion, let us celebrate it with kindness and poetry. I don’t know what it is about Christmas, whether it is the mulled wine or the intoxicating smell of pine needles but when it comes around, I always see more kindness than any other time. I love Christmas for many reasons but this is up there on the top three. It is the time to notice how fortunate we are even when we feel among the unfortunate. It is the season to grow an extra six arms and use them to help other people and catch the occasional tree angel that has come to life and forgotten how to fly. It is the season to build that extension on your heart and love even more than you thought possible. As for today, I want to keep it short because I would like to share a poem with you. Not a poem of mine but a poem by the fantastic Mary Oliver. It is one of my favourite Christmas poems and it is a fantastic way to start off December but it is a little long. Make a nice warm cup of something and snuggle up and have a good old read. You won’t regret it. Stay festive homies!
A Christmas Poem by Mary Oliver
Says a country legend told every year:
Go to the barn on Christmas Eve and see
what the creatures do as that long night tips over.
Down on their knees, they will go, the fire
of an old memory whistling through their minds!
.
I went. Wrapped to my eyes against the cold
I creaked back the barn door and peered in.
From town, the church bells spilled their midnight music,
And the beasts listened–yet they lay in their stalls like stone.
.
Oh, the heretics!
Not to remember Bethlehem,
or the star as bright as the sun,
or the child born on a bed of straw!
To know only of the dissolving Now!
.
Still they drowsed on -–
Citizens of the pure, the physical world,
They loomed in the dark: powerful
of body, peaceful of mind,
innocent of history.
Brothers! I whispered. It is Christmas!
And you are no heretics, but a miracle,
immaculate still as when you were thundered forth
on the morning of creation!
As for Bethlehem, that blazing star
.
still sailed the dark, but only looked for me.
Caught in its light, listening again to its story,
I curled against some sleepy beast, who nuzzled
my hair as though I were a child, and warmed me
the best it could all night.
The first of many christmas songs I will share
