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A R T S  POETRY In the dead of winter, life begins again At the heart of winter there is an all but irrepressible impulse to believe in the continuation of being, a passion for renewal, the birth of new life. Against the incoming dark, we light candles. We bring in the evergreen tree and cover it with presents and life-affirming symbols. On our gates and doors we hang wreaths, mandalas bright with holly berries, to attest to the unity of existence, the eternal cycle of return. In the same spirit of avowal the poems gathered here celebrate the metaphoric moments of transformation, moments of hope, however simple, as the weather darkens and the year changes. Christmas Poem To him, the street is for people: Two lovers walking frankly wide Of the pavement, so secure In their entanglement they have no fear. The snow brings a holiday And they, utterly centred In themselves and their touching bodies, Deliciously sensitised under patterned Winter colours and vaulted with joy, Signal with hand and eye A recent trust, a new familiarity, Lit by the body’s exultation. For a while, every morning is Christmas. Andrew Lambirth Morning Snow, Leigh-on-Sea by Anthony Farrell (acrylic on canvas) 52 Resurgence & Ecologist January/February 2019
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Peter Abbs celebrates the evergreen season Tannenbaum Today was the coming of the kings. Stripped of your glitter, all day you were giving yourself, the dark, sweet breath came strong, you were close to death. January is so cold, the bones of the land laid bare and you gone from us, a mulch in the earth to make it strong again, the bones of my father, remember me to him as I remember his hands of warm apples, sandalwood in the pores of his skin and you in the house, God with us. We lopped your branches one by one till there was just the trunk of you. Fine you were and not diminished. We left you standing by the side of the road near the bins and bags full of bones and wrapping paper. I went down to the sea, there was a thin line, cold silver on the horizon. I held my face to the needling wind. It’s gold I want. It’s you I love, from the forest of kings and shepherds, thou Bethlehem of old and ancient times, I knew you from the first as I knew my lover’s skin, my father’s hands, the sap and balsam, frankincense and myrrh of you. The star that laid a beam on you. The lean and light of you. Your empty place. Andie Lewenstein Blessing December and the geese are back ragged beyond our windows, voices torn and sharp. The days grow smaller as the grey skies turn hurrying and wild – the heather smoke torn tousled out of chimneys. But when the light is poured in blessing on the moors it is Old Testament, and all my labour and my frail concerns become as nothing under these great skies left wintering with geese as frail white snow scatters the morning hills and this new day is held in light, still, the coal bucket bumping uselessly my knees as a curlew mourns the silence miles away and sunlight, blessed sunlight, fills the eyes and fills the heart, one moment, then is gone. Kenneth Steven There Light is only in the field sometimes – often it is not there at all and the rain seeps into the corners of the sky to make the trees that stand between seem darker, larger than they really are. When light fills the field it is like liquid gold filling full a cup, sometimes so bright the eye can hardly bear to hold there. Only once have I known such light open like a flower so that I was drenched in all of heaven pouring over me, until I knew that I stood somewhere that was mine and no one else’s for a second, for a moment, for a breath – that I became a kind of gold and all the world in shadow lay beyond. Kenneth Steven Issue 312 Peter Abbs is Poetry Editor for Resurgence & Ecologist. www.peterabbs.net Resurgence & Ecologist 53

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A R T S  POETRY

In the dead of winter, life begins again

At the heart of winter there is an all but irrepressible impulse to believe in the continuation of being, a passion for renewal, the birth of new life. Against the incoming dark, we light candles. We bring in the evergreen tree and cover it with presents and life-affirming symbols. On our gates and doors we hang wreaths, mandalas bright with holly berries, to attest to the unity of existence, the eternal cycle of return. In the same spirit of avowal the poems gathered here celebrate the metaphoric moments of transformation, moments of hope, however simple, as the weather darkens and the year changes.

Christmas Poem To him, the street is for people: Two lovers walking frankly wide Of the pavement, so secure In their entanglement they have no fear. The snow brings a holiday And they, utterly centred In themselves and their touching bodies, Deliciously sensitised under patterned Winter colours and vaulted with joy, Signal with hand and eye A recent trust, a new familiarity, Lit by the body’s exultation. For a while, every morning is Christmas. Andrew Lambirth

Morning Snow, Leigh-on-Sea by Anthony Farrell (acrylic on canvas)

52

Resurgence & Ecologist

January/February 2019

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