Classic poem of the day
There are several attitudes towards Christmas,
Some of which we may disregard:
The social, the torpid, the patently commercial,
The rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight),
And the childish — which is not that of the child
For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel
Spreading its wings at the summit of the tree
Is not only a decoration, but an angel.
The child wonders at the Christmas Tree:
Let him continue in the spirit of wonder......
Member poem of the day
She keeps it in the living room
next to the fire, quite safe from rain
or raucous winds and screened by curtains
from the uninvited sun; alive
but not allowed to grow.
For Alice too,
there was to be no flowering.
The seed of her was sown in stormy times:
the sky was somewhere bombs might fall from;
hostile sea too perilous to cross.
The world was never, as for some of us,
an orchard bulging with ripe fruit.
Her life&rsquo...
