The elements are always there: water and straw,
beasts with warm noses and ignorant eyes,
shepherds satisfied that they have found
another myth, wise men who trace
to its source whatever bright notion falls
from their Babylonian sky; at the centre rests
the everlasting family set-piece
and in the distance Herod dreams of his enemies´ ghosts.
Here, outside this local
window, little sticks
(like gravestones) mark where under snow
tulip-bulbs save up and nourish
blood-red secrets which at Easter will overflow.
ARRIVING BY TRAIN, DECEMBER

Less familiar miles are quick.
Further north, each mile
thickens and slows. Gorse, rowan,
pine, without seeing them
I recognise the way they lean.
A croft light, one more.
I fill the black space between
with names like Lothbeag or Loth
(public policies) and quick
unstoppable recall:
instants of weather, the bend
of reeds, campions under larch
I know are felled, a raised beach
whose stones never seemed to warm.
Private policies, no doubt.
Father´s waiting shape watches
five strangers alight, one
of whom stops and becomes me.
Our feet make the same sound
creaking home on new snow.