The Gift of Love

the hard journey other people are making of it – no sparklers or 15-year old for them for sure, and goodwill nowhere near. An article I once read compared the 800 million people who live in the 10 richest countries in the world with the same number, 800 million, their brothers and sisters, who every night fall asleep starving – Christmas night for them no different to any other grim and desolate night.

Here are two other Christmas poems I like – written by an English woman poet U.A. Fanthorpe.

Party Night

Busiest night of the year Six-course corporate dinner, Everything’s gotta be OK – Coffee, mints, walnuts, wine – Wassail, as you might say.

Saw at once they had to go –

Not the party spirit.

Him, living on handouts, no doubt,

Her, in the family way. No, I said to the wife, Not this night, of all nights.

Wife’s obstinate. Typical.

BC : AD

This was the moment when Before Turned into After, and the future’s Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing Happened. Only dull peace Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans Could find nothing better to do

Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment

When a few farm workers and three Members of an obscure Persian sect

Walked haphazard by starlight straight Into the kingdom of heaven.

Last of all, since this is the time of goodwill which lies at the heart of love, let me tell you two lines from John Donne which we should never forget:

“Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, monthes, which are the rags of

time.”

Love endures, yet it has no duration, since duration involves time and love “no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday.” It melts the poles of past and future, time’s east and west. And now, at Christmas, it remains, as always, the best gift by far to share.