Getting The Message (Poetry)

Every year as they arrive in twos and threes
beginning early-ish in December
I Blu-tack Christmas greetings cards to
our living room’s plain wooden door

Their awkward sizes grouped as tastefully
as I can manage given ever-wider diversities
of shape and subject according to whimsy
and degrees of pictorial appeal

So often I am struck to ask the question
what on earth their subject has to do Christmas
I count too few nativities — a lamentable dearth of angels
a lack of wise men — even shepherds, lambs and all ...

Santa has his fair share of incarnations
jolly-plump or witty cartoon-thin
with reindeer, trees and tinsel
but the infant Jesus is a rarity gone into hiding

I wonder if the senders judge us heathen
or don’t think about the meaning any more
as they scribble their ‘best wishes’ or ‘with love’s
perhaps it shouldn’t matter. But it does ...

I find I crave tradition more and more
those images that kindle some fond dream
a hint of magic from when childhood still believed
and a comet once passed over Bethlehem

Poinsettia might be okay for some
or an arty Christmas pud with holly sprigs on top
modern symbolism’s fine for the less spiritually inclined
I get the message ...
                        but it should be more than robins