Poem: December 1, 2019

Christmas Village

Setting up the village,
with its hand-painted
porcelain buildings and
Victorian figurines is
a strange and comforting
form of story-telling.

Imagine the Spectacle
shop cottage with its
permanent remnants of
snow, still and forever
melting on the roof,
nestled between the low
Olde Curiosity Shoppe
and the grand Victoria
station where the portly
grandmother crouches,
arms outstretched to
greet her granddaughter.

And across the room,
the Catholic church,
leaning into its flying
buttresses, its wooden
door, slightly ajar, and
men outside with canes
and top hats, and women,
their arms full of food
for the poor and hungry.

And Charles Dickens
himself, surrounded by
a crowd of villagers,
reading by lamplight from
A Christmas Carol,

while atop the bookcase
sit the Tower of London,
and Westminster Abbey,
and the Globe Theatre,
impossibly close to one
another and decorated
with garland and bows.

Look how the barristers
gather outside the Houses
of Parliament, and the
Beefeaters tend the ravens.
Look how the players
sound their horns to call
the world to the play.

I like how still this small
world is, how it remains
in stasis, lit from the
inside by its nightlight
bulbs. I like how kindly
and warmly it sits there
throughout the Advent season.