ozarque

I've been reading your analyses and your excellent suggestions, and they've made it possible for me to do some revision of the poem. The result is still not what it ought to be -- it still needs a lot of work -- but I think it's a little bit better than it was. Here's the revised draft, with my thanks for your help....


A Carol For Christmas

To the Holy One be praise,
praise and laud and laughter.
Life shall dance the Christmas days;
Love shall follow after.
Disciplines have their degrees,
joy by far the sternest.
Grace befalls you on your knees?
Rise -- rejoice in earnest!

No bell has a double tongue,
none will change its story;
notes remain as they are rung,
constancy their glory.
Marvel then how humankind,
that most favored creature,
gifted with both heart and mind,
lacks this simple feature.

We must somehow understand
wind and rain and weather,
wrath and bliss across the land --
rose, and rod, and feather.
Granting gloom more than its due
only feeds its power;
bitter thyme and bitter rue
bear no Christmas flower.

Shepherds in the fields abide,
glory comes to greet them.
Story of the Christmastide:
angels come to meet them.
Now, abiding in our fields,
our eyes are blind to glory;
girded with our modern shields,
we cannot hear the Story.

Let us set our minds to solve
riddles of the season.
First, the Principle resolve:
All things have a reason.
Though the world raise gates and walls
garlanded with folly,
may lovingkindness deck your halls,
all among the holly.

fibermom's blogpost this morning at http://www.xanga.com/fibermom/556580340/item.html?nextdate=last has instructions for making nut-and-chocolate-and-caramel "turtles" --instructions for doing this with kids helping you -- that looks like a real winner to me. Recommended. And unlike me, fibermom knows how to put pictures in her blogposts; you can see what the turtles look like when they're finished.

I'd show you what my fruitcake looks like, if I were similarly skilled....