by New Yorker
No, not Tiny Tim or big Bob Cratchit.
Even on December 26th it reveals no rifts;
She is already compiling her list of next year’s gifts.
Her actions during the winter are conscientious and methodical,
Now snipping an advertisement from a newspaper, now clipping a coupon from a periodical.
In the spring she is occupied with mail-order catalogues from Racine and Provincetown and Richmond and Walla Walla,
Which offer a gallimaufry of gewgaws, gadgets, widgets, jiggers, trinkets, and baubles, postpaid for a dollar.
Midsummer evenings find her trudging home from clearance sales, balancing parcel upon parcel,
With blithe heart and weary metatarsal.
Soon appear the rolls of garish paper and the spools of gaudy ribbon,
And to describe the decline and fall of Mr. Revere it would take the pen of a Gibbon.
Poor Mr. Revere—such harbingers of Christmas do not brighten him,
They simply frighten him.
He cringes like a timid hobo when a fierce dog raises its hackles at him;
Wherever he steps, ribbons wind around his ankles and paper crackles at him.
He feels himself threatened by Christmas on all fronts;
Shakespeare had Mr. Revere in mind when he wrote, “Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.”
These are the progressively ominous hints of impending doom:
First, he is forbidden to open a certain drawer, then a certain closet, and, finally, a certain room.
If Mr. Revere looks slightly seedy as he goes his daily rounds
It’s because his clean shirts and socks are now out of bounds.
Indeed, the only reason he gets by,
He remembers previous years and has provided himself with haberdashery he can drip and dry.
The days of September, October, November are like globules of water on the forehead of a tortured prisoner dropping;
Each is another day on which he has done no Christmas shopping.
At this point the Devil whispers that if he puts it off until Christmas Eve the shops will be emptier,
A thought than which nothing could be temptier,
But Christmas Eve finds him bedridden with a fever of nearly ninety-nine degrees, and swaddled in blankets up to his neck,
So on Christmas morn he has nothing for Mrs. Revere but a kiss and a check,
Which somehow works out fine, because she enjoys being kissed
And the check is a great comfort when she sits down on December 26th to compile her next year’s list.
1957
“Miss Harwood, please see to it that the halls are decked.”
SAINT NICHOLAS,
MARIANNE MOORE
might I, if you can find it, be given
a chameleon with tail
that curls like a watch spring; and vertical
on the body—including the face—pale
tiger-stripes, about seven
(the melanin in the skin
having been shaded from the sun by thin
bars; the spinal dome
beaded along the ridge
as if it were platinum)?*
If you can find no striped chameleon,
might I have a dress or suit—
I guess you have heard of it—of qiviut?
And, to wear with it, a taslon shirt, the drip-dry fruit of research second to none,
sewn, I hope, by Excello,
as for buttons to keep down the collar-points, no.
The shirt could be white—and be “worn before six,”
either in daylight or at night.
But don’t give me, if I can’t have the dress,
a trip to Greenland, or grim
trip to the moon. The moon should come here. Let him make the trip down, spread on my dark floor some dim marvel, and if a success
that I stoop to pick up and wear,
I could ask nothing more. A thing yet more rare,
though, and different,
would be this: Hans von Marées’
St. Hubert, kneeling with head bent,
form erect—in velvet, tense with restraint—
hand hanging down; the horse, free.
Not the original, of course. Give me
a postcard of the scene—huntsman and divinity—
hunt-mad Hubert startled into a saint
by a stag with a Figure entined.
But why tell you what you must have divined?
Saint Nicholas, O Santa Claus,
would it not be the most
prized gift that ever was!
1958
*Pictured in Life, September 15, 1958, with a letter from Dr. Doris M. Cochran, Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians, National Museum, Washington, D.C.
THE MAGUS
JAMES DICKEY
It is time for the others to come.
This child is no more than a god.
No cars are moving this night.
The lights in the houses go out.
I put these out with the rest.
From his crib, the child begins
To shine, letting forth one ray
Through the twelve simple bars of his bed
Down into the trees, where two
Long-lost other men shall be drawn
Slowly up to the brink of the house,
Slowly in through the breath on the window.
But how did I get in this room?
Is this my son, or another’s?
Where is the woman to tell me
How my face is lit up by his body?
It is time for the others to come.
An event more miraculous yet
Is the thing I am shining to tell you.
This child is no more than a child.
1960
THE CHRISTMAS CACTUS
L. M. ROSENBERG
All during the Christmas rush
I waited for the thing to come alive.
Eyed it while I gift-wrapped scarves,
withered it with scorn as I threw
the green and silver bundles under the tree.
By New Year’s
I vowed to be happy
living with just stems.
Then one day in February,
the worst month of the year—
making up in misery what it lacks in length—
the blooms shot out,
three ragged cerise bells that rang
their tardy hallelujahs on the sill.
Late bloomers,
like the girls that shine
and shine at long last
at the spring dance
from their corner of the gym.
1981
ICICLES
ROBERT PINSKY
A brilliant beard of ice
Hangs from the edge of the roof
Harsh and heavy as glass.
The spikes a child breaks off
Taste of wool and the sun.
In the house, some straw for a bed,
Circled by a little train,
Is the tiny image of God.
The sky is fiery blue,
And a fiery morning light
Burns on the fresh deep snow:
Not one track in the street.
Just as the carols tell
Everything is calm and bright:
The town lying still,
The street cold and white.
Is only one child awake,
Breaking the crystal chimes?—
Knocking them down with a stick,
Leaving the broken stems.
1983
CHRISTMAS IN QATAR
CALVIN TRILLIN
(A new holiday classic, for those tiring of “White Christmas” and “Jingle Bells”)
VERSE:
The shopping starts, and every store’s a zoo.
I’m frantic, too: I haven’t got a clue
Of what to get
for Dad, who’s got no hobby,
Or why Aunt Jane, who’s shaped like a kohlrabi,
Wants frilly sweater sets, or where I’ll find
A tie my loudmouthed Uncle Jack won’t mind.
A shopper’s told it’s vital he prevails:
Prosperity depends on Christmas sales.
“Can’t stop to talk,” I say. “No time. Can’t halt.
Economy could fail. Would be my fault.”
CHORUS:
I’d like to spend next Christmas in Qatar,
Or someplace else that Santa won’t find handy.
Qatar will do, although, Lord knows, it’s sandy.
I need to get to someplace pretty far.
I’d like to spend next Christmas in Qatar.
VERSE:
Young Cousin Ned, his presents on his knees,
Says Christmas wrappings are a waste of trees.
Dad’s staring, vaguely puzzled, at his gift.
And Uncle Jack, to give us all a lift,
Now tells a Polish joke he heard at work.
So Ned calls Jack a bigot and a jerk.
Aunt Jane, who knows that’s true, breaks down and cries.
Then Mom comes out to help, and burns the pies.
Of course, Jack hates the tie. He’ll take it back.
That’s fair, because I hate my Uncle Jack.
CHORUS:
I’d like to spend next Christmas in Tibet,
Or any place where folks cannot remember
That there is something special in December.
Tibet’s about as far as you can get.
I’d like to spend next Christmas in Tibet.
VERSE:
Mom’s turkey is a patriotic riddle:
It’s red and white, plus bluish in the middle.
The blue’s because the oven heat’s not stable.
The red’s from ketchup Dad snuck to the table.
Dad says he loves the eyeglass stand from me—
Unless a sock rack’s what it’s meant to be.
“A free-range turkey’s best,” Ned says. “It’s pure.”
“This hippie stuff,” Jack says, “I can’t endure.”
They say goodbye, thank God. It’s been a strain.
At least Jack’s tie has got a ketchup stain.
CHORUS:
I’d like to spend next Christmas in Rangoon,
Or any place where Christmas is as noisy
As Buddhist holidays might be in Boise.
I long to hear Der Bingle smoothly croon,
“I’m dreaming of a Christmas in Rangoon”—
Or someplace you won’t hear the Christmas story,
And reindeer’s something eaten cacciatore.
I know things can’t go on the way they are.
I’d like to spend next Christmas in Qatar.
1994
TREE WITH ORNAMENTS BY MY MOTHER
ELIZABETH MACKLIN
It could be a wintering bear this year,
long furred & yet unclassified fat fir, rearing
uncrouched by the couch, a bear cub, my first—
a Douglas?—first ever long-needle pine & name unknown.
So thickly fern-broom-, borzoi-or yak-feathered,
whisks under eaves, that ornaments disappear:
the forest of branches has made an interior,
all of her ornaments inside in, and not shown.
But let them try to remain hidden: glass-bird
light paint glows like a house in the woods at four,
snowbound-warm and excited given. It hides this year
but desires to be seen—makes no grief—to be spoken.
This year’s tree makes its scent felt across the yards
in between; the past at last has remade the present. Hark
not to the shining idols but to their singular deity, inward
invisible bird fir fragrance, who says they could even be broken.
1999
25.XII.1993
JOSEPH BRODSKY
For a miracle, take one shepherd’s sheepskin, throw
In a pinch of now, a grain of long ago,
And a handful of tomorrow. Add by eye
A little bit of ground, a piece of sky,
And it will happen. For miracles, gravitating
To earth, know just where people will be waiting,
And eagerly will find the right address
And tenant, even in a wilderness.
Or, if you’re leaving home, switch on a new
Four-pointed star in Heaven as you do,
To light a vacant world with steady blaze
And follow you forever with its gaze.
(Translated, from the Russian, by Richard Wilbur)
1999
NATIVITY POEM
JOSEPH BRODSKY
Imagine striking a match that night in the cave:
Imagine crockery, try to make use of its glaze
To feel cold cracks in the floor, the blankness of hunger.
Imagine the desert—but the desert is everywhere.
Imagine striking a match in that midnight cave,
The fire, the farm beasts in outline, the farm tools and stuff;
And imagine, as you towel your face in enveloping folds,
Mary, Joseph, and the Infant in swaddling clothes.
Imagine the kings, the caravans’ stilted procession
As they make for the cave, or, rather, three beams closing in
And in on the star; the creaking of loads, the clink of a cowbell;
(No thronging of Heaven as yet, no peal of the bell
That will ring in the end for the Infant once he has earned it).
Imagine the Lord, for the first time, from darkness, and stranded
Immensely in distance, recognizing Himself in the Son
Of Man: His homelessness plain to him now in a homeless one.
(Translated, from the Russian, by Seamus Heaney)
2000
FLIGHT TO EGYPT
JOSEPH BRODSKY
Inside the cave (an off-plumb dugout,
But a roof above their heads, for all that),
Inside the cave the three felt close
In the fug of fodder and old clothes.
Straw for bedding. Beyond the door,
Blizzard, sandstorm, howling air.
Mule rubbed ox; they stirred and groaned
Like sand and snowflake scourged in wind.
Mary prays; the fire soughs;
Joseph frowns into the blaze.
Too small to be fit to do a thing
But sleep, the Infant is just sleeping.
Relief for now. They’ve gained a day:
Herod off his head, his army
Outwitted but still closing in,
And the centuries also, one by one.
That night, as three, they were at peace.
Smoke like a shy retiring guest
Slipped out the door. There was one far-off
Heavy sigh from the mule. Or the ox.
The star looked in across the threshold.
The only one of them who could
Know what its fervent staring meant
Was the Infant. But He was infans, silent.
(Translated, from the Russian, by Seamus Heaney)
2000
GREETINGS, FRIENDS!
FRANK SULLIVAN
It may be argued, and with some reason,
That we could skip this Christmas season,
There being no great cause for mirth
And precious little peace on earth.
Not me. I’m sorry, but I’ll keep Yule
With any kindred spirit who’ll
Accompany me in a Christmas caper,
So how’s about it, Muriel Draper?
I’ll keep Christmas until hell freezes
With Joan Blondell and Royal Cortissoz,
Franchot Tone and Justice Stone,
And Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Cohn;
With Ho
ward, Ruth, and Peter Moody,
Surrogate George O. Tuck and Trudy,
Morris Bishop, Sam Byrd,
Donald Duck and Mortimer Snerd.
Though Bethlehem’s star’s eclipsed by Mars,
My glass is clinking with Bert Lahr’s;
Though good old Civ is on the brink,
I’ll take a chance and lift a drink
To General Gamelin of France,
To Justice Hughes and Vivian Vance,
Ed Wynn, Billy Conn,
Caesar Bozzo, Thomas Mann,
The Ward Cheneys, Irene Dunne,
And all the boys at Twenty-One,
The Bradfords, Mary Rose and Roark,
And the friendly Ganymedes at the Stork,
June Walker, Joe Kerrigan,
George Ritchie, Tom Berrigan,
Bob Davidson and Marietta,
The Carl Van Dorens and Papa Moneta.
I drink a wassail to Dave Cort,
To Lida Thomas and Viscount Gort,
Raymond Parker, Winston Churchill,
Charlie Merz and Freddie Birchall,
Senator Hattie Caraway,
Premier Ed Daladier,
Lester Cuddihy, Zorina,
Leopold and Wilhelmina.
Pardon the proud alumnal beam
I cast upon the Big Red Team,
The rootin’, tootin’ mass Blitzkrieg
That flattened out the Ivy League;
Oh, far above Cayuga’s waters,
With its waves of H2O,
Cornell’s sons and Cornell’s daughters
Have a perfect right to crow!
Here’s to Tony Canzoneri,
Tom Chalmers, Daise Terry,
Sam Forrest, Georges Enesco,
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco!
The world’s a vast Pandora’s box,
But I still have faith in Fontaine Fox,
In Sophie Kerr and David Niven,
The New Republic and Bruce Bliven,
Edward Johnson and the Met,
The Gibbses, Arthur and Jeannette,
Mrs. Caroline O’Day,
Ruth Gordon, Alice Faye,
Frank Buck and M. K. Gandhi,
Dan Parker, Baby Sandy,
Louis Sobol, Grantland Rice,
Father Cashin and Garrett Price,
Don Stewart, Harriette Finch,