Tonight the wind gnaws <br />With teeth of glass, <br />The jackdaw shivers <br />In caged branches of iron, <br />The stars have talons. <br /> <br />There is hunger in the mouth <br />Of vole and badger, <br />Silver agonies of breath <br />In the nostril of the fox, <br />Ice on the rabbit’s paw. <br /> <br />Tonight has no moon, <br />No food for the pilgrim; <br />The fruit tree is bare, <br />The rose bush a thorn <br />And the ground is bitter with stones. <br /> <br />But the mole sleeps, and the hedgehog <br />Lies curled in a womb of leaves, <br />The bean and the wheat-seed <br />Hug their germs in the earth <br />And the stream moves under the ice. <br /> <br />Tonight there is no moon, <br />But a new star opens <br />Like a silver trumpet over the dead. <br />Tonight in a nest of ruins <br />The blessed babe is laid. <br />And the fir tree warms to a bloom of candles, <br />And the child lights his lantern, <br />Stares at his tinselled toy; <br />And our hearts and hearths <br />Smoulder with live ashes. <br /> <br />In the blood of our grief <br />The cold earth is suckled, <br />In our agony the womb <br />Convulses its seed; <br />In the first cry of anguish <br />The child’s first breath is born.<br /><br />Laurie Lee<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/christmas-landscape/
