I'm delighted once again to be included in Dodging the Rain's 12 poems of Christmas, aka Dodging the Snow. Thanks to editor Neil Slevin for including 5 poems, written late last year, all on a festive theme. The poems can be read here, while The Christmas Book is posted below too.
The Christmas Book
Treasure Island, Black Beauty, Heidi,
Lorna Doone, Oliver Twist, Huckleberry Finn
all populated Christmases past
(I can hear Marley’s chains rattling).
Their names are reeling spools,
a child’s cinema on a dark winter morning,
a galloping horse, a raft on a wide river,
a high mountain top.
Under a duvet sky I ran by the moon
of the torch with The Famous Five across moors.
I watched Anne’s dreams unfurl on Prince Edward Island,
realise her courage in those journeys to family and love.
You could never be lonely with a window
to a wider world, another’s passion processed,
a transfer of energy, a most sincere communication,
a leaving for foreign places, and always a coming home.
Books are the real fairy tales.
Orla Fay
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