Poem // Call It Christmas, Call It Yule

Call It Christmas, Call It Yule is a poem first written in December 2006. It has been substantially reworked for 2009. Poems, like thoughts, are living things and sometimes a poet feels the need to revisit older work once considered to have been completed, to bring it more into line with his or her current feelings and thoughts. This is simply because a final draft can appear anything but with the passing of time and accumulation of experience. Less simply, a poet and poem can never be separated from one another, not entirely, never successfully. The same is true of any relationship between creator and creative offspring, whether we are talking about words or pictures or children.

Call It Christmas, Call It Yule is, in essence, a poem about how those needs so often buried under the commercialism and pressure of the modern age resurface around the time of the Winter Solstice, as people feel a deep calling to head home and be with family and friends.

I hope you enjoy this new version of the poem—it remains didactic, but is much more subtle in its messages than was previously the case—and that it calls to mind for you the reason why we go to so much trouble at this time of year to find the perfect gifts and why we endure the horrible traffic jams on our motorways.

Beyond love, community is something we should treasure.

Call It Christmas, Call It Yule

There’s something in the air beyond the chill.
Something timeless. Something still.
Hear the bells. They ring out waves of joy
across a countryside crisp with recollection,
proud of the people riding on its back,
their destination at this time of year
always home. Look closely. Everyone glitters.

There’s something that remains of the Old Ways,
Pagan and generous. Community is real.
No modern creed can ever drive away
the red and the green. Not in entirety.

Call it Christmas. Call it Yule.

And so we travel, line over black line,
by rail or car, bus or plane,
to get to where we need to be,
where our loved ones wait for us impatiently.