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Christmas in Reverse
A Poem on Christmas Origins
Roll back past ubiquitous pop songs
adverts in September lists of cards to write
ice-rinks spiced wine honey-roasted cashew nuts
window displays on Oxford Street
Santa swigging Coca-Cola —
Speed up past televangelists, pro-life campaigners, flat-worlders,
past missionaries and colonists
exchanging people’s countries for The Book,
past people who translated The Book
into the common tongue being burned
Go faster, past the Romans adopting the Jewish rebel
they killed as their replacement Jupiter
and stop —
Stumble in from a dusty street at night
in the cold of the desert after sundown in winter
into the smell of straw and cattle feed.
See an expectant mother and father
who have finally found some shelter
in this most basic neo-natal ward
as a human life comes into the world
circles its little hand around its mother’s finger.
Stars shining on this cloudless night,
it as simple as the Word the baby boy
will bring when he grows up: love.
