Eight Days to Christmas: Red and Green (and Gold)

From “Christmas Butterfly” by Susan R. Ide in Christmas: The Annual of Christmas Literature and Art, edited by Randolph E. Haugan:

Christmas is a butterfly unfolding
From winter’s chrysalis. Out of the black
And white December harshness flash colors,
Soft fragilities of wings. Icy streets
Shine red and green and gold. Scarlet and pink
Poinsettias glow by hearths. Angels abound.

Christmas is a butterfly unfolding
From the cold human heart. Out of the bleak
Preoccupation with our private woes
And wants, out of the tedium of routines,
There springs the wish to give and to forgive.
Love once again believes and hopes all things.
That Christmas comes each year is proof enough:
Miracles of birth and rebirth still occur.

From “The Christmas Life” by Wendy Cope in Christmas Poems, chosen by Gaby Morgan:

Bring in a tree, a young Norwegian spruce,
Bring hyacinths that rooted in the cold.
Bring winter jasmine as its buds unfold —
Bring the Christmas life into this house.

Bring red and green and gold, bring things that shine,
Bring candlesticks and music, food and wine.
Bring in your memories of Christmas past.
Bring in your tears for all that you have lost.

Bring in the shepherd boy, the ox and ass,
Bring in the stillness of an icy night,
Bring in a birth, of hope and love and light.
Bring the Christmas life into this house.

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