Wishing You a Haiku Christmas

Russian poet Joseph Brodsky was so struck by the Christmas season that he wrote a poem for Christmas every year. These poems, now collected in his book Nativity Poems, are concerned not only with the iconography of Christmas, but also its themes: eternity, love, celebration, winter, perfection, sin.
(Poems about Christmas, Academy of American Poets)

But children have a much more imaginative take on the Nativity:

Karen: So what's this big news, then?

Daisy: [excited] We've been given our parts in the nativity play. And I'm the lobster.

Karen: The lobster?

Daisy: Yeah!

Karen: In the nativity play?

Daisy: [beaming] Yeah, *first* lobster.

Karen: There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?

Daisy: Duh.

(IMDB Quotes from the film, Love Actually)

But for a nativity poem, best ask joseph, titled, Nativity by Joseph Brodsky:

Above their encampment, the sky, cold and idle,
and leaning as big things will do over little,
was burning a star, which from this very instant
had no place to go, save the gaze of the infant.
(from Nativity by Joseph Brodsky, December 1990)

The Big Day

Christmas Day is the day I've been waiting for because it's the day the Christmas cake opens its blinking eyes, in time to witness its dismemberment at the hands of a human wielding a knife. The gestation period of my mum's Christmas cake is around 3 months, during which time it matures and its flavours intensify. It dons its marzipan hat about a week before the big day and the first slice is sampled circa 12pm on Christmas Day.

So, to wrap this post up and let you get on with unwrapping your colourful hats from your crackers, I'll leave you with a poetic reflection on Christmas in the form of a series of haiku. The final stanza was published in the Vanguard section of the January 2017 issue of World Haiku Review

SURVIVING CHRISTMAS

“Christmas tree, O Christ…”
myth or fact, I'm dreaming of
a tree dressed in white.
 

Instead we get rain
mornings waking with frostbite
and cold bedroom floors.
 

“Tra-la-la-la-laaa”
sing kids neither seen or heard
since Trick or Treat night.
 

Here cometh the lunch
turkey and all the trimmings
quite an avalanche.
 

“Oh what fun it is…”
did we keep those receipts? That
drone is going back!
 

Man’s got to do what
a man’s got to do. Meaning
lots of washing up.
 

“Silent night, holy…”
crap, I ate too much choc’late
and cake. I feel fat.
 

Blow out the candles
before curiosity
ignites nosey cat.

#HappyChristmas #Haiku #Nativity #JosephBrodsky