Burning the Christmas Greens [on February 2nd]
Their time past, pulled down
cracked and flung to the fire
—go up in a roar
All recognition lost, burnt clean
clean in the flame, the green
dispersed, a living red,
flame red, red as blood wakes
on the ash—
and ebbs to a steady burning
the rekindled bed become
a landscape of flame
At the winter’s midnight
we went to the trees, the coarse
holly, the balsam and
the hemlock for their green
At the thick of the dark
the moment of the cold’s
deepest plunge we brought branches
cut from the green treesto fill our need, and over
doorways, about paper Christmas
bells covered with tinfoil
and fastened by red ribbons
we stuck the green prongs
in the windows hung
woven wreaths and above pictures
the living green. On the
mantle we built a green forest
and among those hemlock
sprays put a herd of small
white deer as if they
were walking there. All this!
and it seemed gentle and good
to us. Their time past,
relief! The room bare. We
stuffed the dead grate
with them upon the half burnt out
log's smouldering eye, opening
red and closing under them
and we stood there looking down.
Green is a solace
a promise of peace, a fort
against the cold (though we
did not say so) a challenge
above the snow's
hard shell. Green (we might
have said) that, where
small birds hide and dodge
and lift their plaintive
rallying cries, blocks for them
and knocks down
the unseeing bullets of
the storm. Green spruce boughs
pulled down by a weight of
snow—Transformed!
Violence leaped and appeared.
Recreant! roared to life
as the flame rose through and
our eyes recoiled from it.
In the jagged flames green
to red, instant and alive. Green!
those sure abutments . . . Gone!
lost to mind
and quick in the contracting
tunnel of the grate
appeared a world! Black
mountains, black and red—as
yet uncolored—and ash white,
an infant landscape of shimmering
ash and flame and we, in
that instant, lost,
breathless to be witnesses,
as if we stood
ourselves refreshed among
the shining fauna of that fire.
By William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963)
Willams advice of taking down the Christmas greens today
echoes that of 17th C poet Robert Herrick
English Poet (1591–1674) Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and mistletoe;
Down with the holly, ivy, all,
Wherewith ye dress'd the Christmas Hall . . .
with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the misletoe . . .
Thus times do shift: each thing its turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.
excerpts from "Ceremony Upon Candlemas Eve"
and "Ceremonies For Candlemas Eve"
On February 1 / 2, we move from Yule to Imbolc [aka Candlemas; Groundhog Day] the Cross - Quarter Day that falls half-way between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox, a time of clear vision into other worlds and festivals of purification.
2010 ~ Imbolc
2011 ~ Prognosticator's Dilemma
2012 ~ Candlemas Eve
2013 ~ Dave
2014 ~ Behold the Boy
2015 ~ Happy Both
2017 ~ Dark Days
2017 ~ Incredible and Amazing
2018 ~ The Least Important Day
2019 ~ Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
2020 ~ An Irish Lament
2021 ~ Clearer Vision
2022 ~ Snowy Snowy Night
2024 ~ Real Live Groundhog
2025 ~ Wintry Synchronicity & Imbolc Angel & Facebook
2026 ~ The Greens: Their Time Past
P.S.
Today is also my brother's birthday,
and the 128th birthday of James Joyce
