Ninth of January

Barely a week...
After the plastic cast of the China-made Crèche recoiled
To their dank and dark repository
There to hibernate for 11 months, you rush
With urgent impatience
And fling open wide
The doors of my slumber

With a shrill, piercing wail she wept
That lady clad in the holiest of purple
One knee in prayer folded,
Another crimsoned by the onslaught
Of a thousand mad men scampering
Eager to caress, to take hold
Of your wooden benediction

O yes those ebony fingers
that lift to the skies
A million cries
For help and health, for death and breath;
The folded, crumpled five of them
In desperate cling ‘round the plywood beam
How sturdy they seem
Strong enough for my dreams

And for my hopes
And for those of the countless others
Who fight for the ropes;
Your stainless carriage blinding in its polish,
As it navigates and sails
On a vast blackened sea,
Spells nothing but salvation