We had no family come this year for Christmas, so I didn't bother with getting out the creches or the lights or even put a few of my mother's tiny ornaments on our jade tree as I usually do . . . This poem makes me regret my laziness and vow to do differently next year, whether anyone comes or not. I love the ending of the poem, the Child who "smiling, looks / Steadfastly at the air, changeless and clean." I'm also reminded of our childhood tradition, when we put the wise men at the far end of the coffee table from the stable and moved them slowly over the month till they arrived on Christmas Eve. (No one in our church taught about the twelve days or Epiphany -- strange as it seems to me now.) Thanks for the lovely poem, Sally!
I don't think of them as ashamed, so much as shy, quiet, subtle, needing an ear tuned to something softer than full rhyme. I like the way they whisper, their chimes missed on the first reading and only picked out, as a surprise, when I come back to look at the formal features of the poem: oh look at that! There is a pattern after all! I've noticed this in Seamus Heaney's poems as well. Sometimes he uses full rhymes, but often he goes for the near-rhyme and it has a gentle effect.
I love how the magi's "touring companies" also calls to mind Shakespeare's touring companies and the play, Twelfth Night-- though by the time he wrote that he wasn't a traveling player anymore, I think. Still, it's a lovely chime that gives me a little thrill.
Also the spider's "shining skein" between the magi calls to mind this lovely haiku:
Thanks for this, Ms. Thomas, and for all your other contributions. For well over a year, I have felt as one in the hands of an extraordinary English professor. It is amazing how most of us mut annually use our fingers to count off the 12 days from Christmas. Presumably, Twelfth Night began as "Epiphany Eve"?
Lovely, and captures the mood of these days perfectly. It does make me wish I lived in a place with the possibility of early daffodils in January. I would settle for no snow during Holy Week.
A beautiful and moving poem and analysis. Our "staring corpse" will have to come down today: tomorrow the city is picking up Christmas trees from the curb. It has held up well, and is so well-shaped that guests thought it an artificial tree. But it was to go sometime.
For those who like this poem but don't know Sally's other work, I strongly recommend that you get hold of her collection Motherland. It's wonderful.
We had no family come this year for Christmas, so I didn't bother with getting out the creches or the lights or even put a few of my mother's tiny ornaments on our jade tree as I usually do . . . This poem makes me regret my laziness and vow to do differently next year, whether anyone comes or not. I love the ending of the poem, the Child who "smiling, looks / Steadfastly at the air, changeless and clean." I'm also reminded of our childhood tradition, when we put the wise men at the far end of the coffee table from the stable and moved them slowly over the month till they arrived on Christmas Eve. (No one in our church taught about the twelve days or Epiphany -- strange as it seems to me now.) Thanks for the lovely poem, Sally!
I love this, Sally.
I feel that these are rhymes not meant to be heard, rhymes ashamed of themselves. I often feel that with new formalism.
I don't think of them as ashamed, so much as shy, quiet, subtle, needing an ear tuned to something softer than full rhyme. I like the way they whisper, their chimes missed on the first reading and only picked out, as a surprise, when I come back to look at the formal features of the poem: oh look at that! There is a pattern after all! I've noticed this in Seamus Heaney's poems as well. Sometimes he uses full rhymes, but often he goes for the near-rhyme and it has a gentle effect.
I love how the magi's "touring companies" also calls to mind Shakespeare's touring companies and the play, Twelfth Night-- though by the time he wrote that he wasn't a traveling player anymore, I think. Still, it's a lovely chime that gives me a little thrill.
Also the spider's "shining skein" between the magi calls to mind this lovely haiku:
https://www.facebook.com/HaikuSocietyOfAmerica/posts/pfbid02kHgbvKpuwUYHMKb6N7B6R7ShzVD1ZdUNvCif3H53P6krzD2db4pUSrBZeCh7i2utl?__cft__[0]=AZV5aOenRZ7EemiEkomW6muILa_ZkHMjLgMciu03QLrGY0SydQaBhF3ByBL_Ma4zfSwQljU2g1jYISoQsu87NQimFepIO2mVQEdIcHWzo8z1mMDOgRoMFxru2z5hqqVfzter3yp4BPuKgriT7-V2lg1n33JjrcmTTIG73ItvQGMtGQ&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R
Oh also the daffodils "missed their cue". More stagecraft!
Thanks for this, Ms. Thomas, and for all your other contributions. For well over a year, I have felt as one in the hands of an extraordinary English professor. It is amazing how most of us mut annually use our fingers to count off the 12 days from Christmas. Presumably, Twelfth Night began as "Epiphany Eve"?
Lovely, and captures the mood of these days perfectly. It does make me wish I lived in a place with the possibility of early daffodils in January. I would settle for no snow during Holy Week.
A beautiful and moving poem and analysis. Our "staring corpse" will have to come down today: tomorrow the city is picking up Christmas trees from the curb. It has held up well, and is so well-shaped that guests thought it an artificial tree. But it was to go sometime.