Beneath the tinsel’s hypnotic glitter-speak,

where commerce’s orchestra plays the annual song,

a child’s wide eyes translate the wonder to

gift-wrapped parcels of hope— each ribbon

tying the sacred and the secular

into one shimmering braid of Yes:

the Nativity, Santa, Carols and Shopping

revealing hunger for the numinous,

embedded in lists and candles,

cathedrals and kitchen tables,

and the mythical talk of a midnight visit.

 

The act of gathering-together

insists on incarnation whether whispered

in liturgy or laughter round a table groaning

with the weight of all our complex loves as sacrament,

for transcendence comes through many doors

we open on to awe, comes in the rehearsed and fragile

December time as we touch another hand

to say, you matter, to remember something

ancient-new about the possible,

about the tender revolution

of a gift freely given, freely held,

while children dream their ancient-new dreams

of wonder about the world,

just for this precarious moment of contradiction.

 

25/12/2025