Happy Christmas

Snow Hill by Andrew Wyatt

 

I come back to this image over and over; it's beautiful, strikes a chord in me, and keeps striking. It's Wyatt's subjects over the years, but reminds me too of  Yeat's review of himself in poetry in the poem 'The Circus Animals' Desertion'.

The image  suggests a poem to me that's buried inside somewhere; I come back again  to find it and suppose sometime I will.

This isn't exactly Christmas cheer, but does remind me of  the Christmas totting up of those departed  that the older generation engaged in when I was a child. 

Continuing a Christmas custom then; wishing you the very best over the coming days.

When the day comes

that I am reduced to the flicker

that is, in a moment, out

and they’re saying “I think he’s gone”,

“yes he’s gone”;

I will, hopefully, be dancing on Snow Hill

with all those I knew,

spinning around, kicking up their legs

in the fields that are home

as the pillows of childhood

and nothing but happiness spinning out

over the unsullied fields.