{"id":945,"date":"2010-12-30T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-30T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=945"},"modified":"2020-12-14T11:14:53","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T11:14:53","slug":"the-sixth-day-of-christmas-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/the-sixth-day-of-christmas-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sixth Day of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Living Yule<\/span>

I was there, when men squatted on haunches <\/span>
\u2028to chip flint and weave webs of belief\u2028 from seasons <\/span>
and circles of death and growth.\u2028<\/span>
The stink of boar-grease stiffening my braid<\/span>
\u2028and blue whorls whispering under my skin \u2028<\/span>
offered hope that darkness could end.<\/span>

I put on homespun robes and tonsured my head<\/span>
to walk the years when dogma stalked faith;<\/span>
smoothing old ways and old faces to new shapes,<\/span>
nudging builders to find safe spaces in stone arches.<\/span>
Heedless of changed names for the turns of the year,<\/span>
I watched the ploughman bury cakes for first cut,<\/span>
crooned the song of seasons round to seed-time.<\/span>

I\u2019ve paced the years\u2019 life and I am still here to die <\/span>
ever again. Hide me beneath plastic and tinsel, <\/span>
dress me in red, fatten my cheeks, sweeten my story;<\/span>
the scent of old circles clings to the shade of man. <\/span>


Angela France<\/span>


Supply<\/span>
 <\/span>
More through a faint vibration of the air<\/span>
on our skin than by the ear,<\/span>
 <\/span>
we feel his arrival and hurry out –<\/span>
leave the unfamiliar house for a darkness that<\/span>
 <\/span>
to our urban eyes is solid pitch,<\/span>
nothing close, no middle, no sense of distance,<\/span>
 <\/span>
just a freezing rural December night<\/span>
and whatever we can feel beneath our feet.<\/span>
 <\/span>
And there he is, rear wheels slipping in the mud<\/span>
frictionless as any proper god \u2013<\/span>
 <\/span>
come with the intent of supplying us<\/span>
with food and drink through the winter solstice.<\/span>
 <\/span>
Rotund, in the spill of his van\u2019s light,<\/span>
a pair of plump hands on hips, legs apart,<\/span>
 <\/span>
he stands there laughing at his predicament,<\/span>
then punches away at the faint<\/span>
 <\/span>
signal on his phone but the place is too remote.<\/span>
We offer to help him out \u2013<\/span>
 <\/span>
begin to stumble to and fro in the lane,<\/span>
in his rear-lights each like a crimson-faced clown \u2013<\/span>
 <\/span>
trying gravel shovelled from the farm drive,<\/span>
trying terracotta roof tiles<\/span>
 <\/span>
someone has tipped beside the bramble hedge.<\/span>
We search for anything we might wedge<\/span>
 <\/span>
in the black slithering mess under his tyres,<\/span>
straw, cardboard, logs, ironic prayers.<\/span>
 <\/span>
But the van still snarls like a tethered beast<\/span>
and rocks to and fro like a helpless<\/span>
 <\/span>
child that fights the confines of its cradle . . .<\/span>
Then he dismisses us with a smile.<\/span>
 <\/span>
He sends us back to light and warmth,<\/span>
saying something like it\u2019s what I\u2019m here for.<\/span>
 <\/span>
We shut the door, relieved, to be honest.<\/span>
We leave him to the closing vice of frost<\/span>
 <\/span>
and next morning scarves of mist<\/span>
replace the dark that with him have vanished.<\/span>
 <\/span>
Wheel ruts, gravel, red tiles broken:<\/span>
we laugh in daylight \u2013 did this really happen?<\/span>
 <\/span>
Outside, there is so little evidence to show.<\/span>
Inside, shelves overflow. <\/span>


Martyn Crucefix<\/span>


<\/span><\/a>



*Angela France<\/span> has had poems published in many of the leading journals, in the UK and abroad. She has an MA (with distinction) in \u2018Creative and Critical Writing\u2019 from the University of Gloucestershire and is studying for a PhD. Her second collection, <\/span>Occupation<\/span><\/a> is available from Ragged Raven Press and a third will be out with Nine Arches Press in 2011.<\/span>

*Martyn Crucefix<\/span><\/a>'s  prizes include a major Eric Gregory award and a Hawthornden Fellowship. He has published 4 collections, including <\/span>An English Nazareth<\/span>
\n (Enitharmon, 2004). His translation of Rilke\u2019s Duino Elegies was
\npublished by Enitharmon in 2006, shortlisted for the Popescu Prize for
\nEuropean Poetry Translation. His new collection, <\/span>Hurt<\/span><\/a>, has just been published by Enitharmon.  <\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Living YuleI was there, when men squatted on haunches \u2028to chip flint and weave webs of belief\u2028 from seasons and circles of death and growth.\u2028The stink of boar-grease stiffening my braid\u2028and blue whorls whispering under my skin \u2028offered hope that darkness could end.I put on homespun robes and tonsured my headto walk the years when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-twelve-days-of-christmas-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23919,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions\/23919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}