Frost warning, Christmastide {a #poem}

And video links to enjoy this season

Suspended like the action

in a photograph, crystals layer

the silent surfaces of earth.

A view through the glass

allows my eyes to rest

on swaying chimes that twirl

in the dull air, sound muted by

the cold, silver cylinders struck

dumb. I ponder a season stilled like this

one. Earth holds its breath, awaiting life

to burst on the scene, not with noise

but sudden silence that shocks Heaven

into a choir, voicing the music for God’s song.

Lord, let me be like the Shepherds, alive and awake to hear.

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Merry (almost) Christmas, friends!

Here I offer you some video gifts (not of my own making) to enjoy in your Christmas-ing days ahead:

1. Poet Malcolm Guite reading a scene in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe where Father Christmas appears. This is part of Malcolm’s regular “Spell in the Library” videos on You Tube.

2. The Shepherd, a short film from Dallas Jenkins, Director of The Chosen. The Christmas story perhaps like you’ve never seen it.

3. This delightful film, The Man Who Invented Christmas, a story of Charles Dickens, of course, with Christopher Plummer playing Scrooge. From 2017. It’s delightful!