Taking Down The Christmas Tree (Poetry)

It’s time to take it down —
fold away its artificial limbs
and box up the baubles —
all those MADE IN CHINA plastic figures
awfully cheerful
in their flaking gaudy glitter.

For it’s July — and long past
tradition’s Twelfth Night deadline
and the bad luck’s
done its worst
by now if superstition’s
had its old-world way.

We’ve stretched the Christmas spirit
just as far
as it will reasonably go.
With seven months of
jolly Ho! Ho! Ho!
keeping the magic alive

even when the sunbeams
slanting through the curtains
outshone the fairy lights
once it got dark
the tree came into
its own.

But now it’s time to
take it down —
undo the fakery
we’ve traded on these days
of make-believe —
put out the stars.

Pack away the angels
snowmen, Santa Claus and such —
their spell has faded
as we fell the six foot fir — dismantle it
in sections for storage in the loft
colour drains from that now hollow
corner of the room.