CHRISTMAS TREE
- psalm -
That's a part of the world you'll bring
home. It's fragile but it might breathe longer
while we decorate it, spiky and green.
The cosmos is just such a figure, if a superior order
and law: Name.
Our eyes are a traditionally concealed repository
for wishes. Think of a secret catch of oysters, lobsters,
picarel, plaice. Then add water, salt and stone,
food, chronos -
Time. God's word. Theorems.
We forty year olds open ourselves to the toys.
The prefixes become shiny
lampions.
Fireflies. Up-lifting. Up-holding. The air up-above.
Up-heaval. Almost a comical cos-mos.
So. Hang the long words near the top.
They can be suspended free, celestially.
From Christmas Eve to New Year's Day, maybe to Epiphany
you'll awaken us with their music and its splendour.
They are jewels. You are our penguin
our seal, jaguar and lamb.
You have a camera hidden
to film popular science movies.
And you offer us the joy you never received.
when you, yourself, were little.
Translated by Ilija Casule and Thomas Shapcott
