WENDY COPE – How to have a happy Christmas
A lot of men love Christmas: the gathering of the clan,
But still it’s mostly women who have to think and plan.
So much to organise, to shop for and remember –
Hard work that occupies the best part of December.
I don’t enjoy it but I do the best I can.
How to have a happy Christmas? Be a man.
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS – The Shadow
Soft as the bed in the earth
Where a stone has lain –
So soft, so smooth and so cool,
Spring closes me in
With her arms and her hands.
Rich as the smell
Of new earth on a stone,
That has lain, breathing
The damp through its pores –
Spring closes me in
With her blossomy hair;
Brings dark to my eyes.
W. S. MERWIN – Black Cherries
Late in May as the light lengthens
toward summer the young goldfinches
flutter down through the day for the first time
to find themselves among fallen petals
cradling their day’s colors in the day’s shadows
of the garden beside the old house
after a cold spring with no rain
not a sound comes from the empty village
as I stand eating the black cherries
from the loaded branches above me
saying to myself Remember this