Merry Christmas, and after this difficult year, I wish you all the very best for 2021!
Thanks for reading the blog this year, and for your thoughtful comments. Enjoy this Christmas poem, Christmas Breeze, by John Figueroa.
Christmas Breeze
Auntie would say 'Ah! Christmas breeze',
as the Norther leapt from the continent
across Caribbean seas,
across our hills
to herald Christmas,
ham boiling in the yard
plum pudding in the cloth
(Let three stones bear the pot;
and feed the hat-fanned fire).
This breeze in August cools a Summer's day
here in England.
In December in Jamaica
we would have called it cold,
Cold Christmas Breeze,
fringing the hill tops with its tumble
of cloud, bringing in
imported apples, and dances
and rum (for older folk).
For us, some needed clothes, and a pair
of shoes squeezing every toe.
And Midnight Mass:
Adeste Fideles!
Some Faithful came -
and why not? - a little drunk,
some overdressed, but
ever faithful.
Like Christmas breeze
returning every year, bearing
not August's end, nor October's
wind and rain but Christmas
and 'starlights'
and a certain sadness, except for Midnight Mass
and the Faithful
('The Night when Christ was born')
I miss celebrations, but I miss most
the people of faith
who greeted warmly every year
the Christmas breeze.
