Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 5 Number 3, December  2004

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A Happy Christmas

by

Stephen Michael McGowan

 

From my captive cell across the way

The gothic Minster holds imposing sway,

It reaches out to heaven in the winter’s pale blue morn

With bell-tower and turrets of beautifully weathered stone,

Its spires gaze down benevolently through my casement

To watch my mortal sleeping form.

A captive audience of one - I hear

The perpetual tolling of its seasonal bells

And the doleful chimes which strike the witching hour,

They echo seemingly without end

Within my fevered dreaming mind

And prophesy something I never thought to find,

The nearness of the one who is to be…

My first and only bride!

 

Upon the windswept cobbled streets of York

Hand in hand I with my truelove walk

And whilst my feet ache to stop to rest awhile

My happy soul could progress a million miles

With you, my beautiful angel at my side.

Had we two in this lifetime never met

An eternal, but willing traveller I would be

Just to drop down dead outside your door

Should eternity’s continuum become no more!

We stroll this city’s cold damp streets

Awaiting the winter’s first flurry of snow

To turn our world into a pretty picture postcard.

 

My fondest wish come true this happy year

For one short month ago…or was it two?

I met you

Different worlds were we both born to

And yet of one heart, mind and soul

My jaan are you

And yes, you taught me that word too.

An idyllic Indian summer’s sun

In my perpetual English winter

A soul-mate had I found in you,

No seasonal snowflake heaven sent

Was yet more lovely or more delicate,

No snowman’s smile more charming

Nor a child’s sweet laughter more heart-warming;

You brought the rainbow’s colourful brushstroke

To my somewhat drab and joyless world.

Your unchained rapture won me over

I was drawn from the banal to sublime -

In a whimsical second and with not a pause for thought.

 

No harp-burdened angel atop my evergreen tree

That pagan symbol of the free to comfort me,

No tinsel or tassel to turn my mind

From the dark thoughts that once assailed it

As this season cast its lonely spell upon me.

The scented candles of our homely abode burn on

As they float serenely upon liquid lakes of blue

And incense burns in each and every room,

You keep me safe from this seasons frosty bite

As the wind herself laments…

Her cries of anguish echo through our home

A chill reminder of our Christmases alone

And as the bells of York’s great Minster

Ring out their yuletide cheer - I sigh

And wordlessly thank the Gods you’re here.