この ブログ から あなた まで メリークリスマス!

If you can't see or read the Japanese kana up there in the header, it's "Kono burogu kara anata made meri kurisumasu"; or, "From this blog to you, Merry Christmas."

All the poetry I've been working on has me craving more, so permit me to combine holiday festivity with literary expression. I was considering posting a poem of mine here, but I frankly have no Christmas-related subject matter. In fact, I have nothing close to appropriate.

Still, I'm saved. Today, Poetry Daily has three Christmas poems that each sound different notes. Two of them are superb, and I urge you to check them out even if you're not a poetry person.

Which, by the way, you are. We are all poetry people, all of us interested in language, whether we realize it or not.

The first, Patric Dickinson's "On Seeing a Christian Gardener at Eighty," appeals to me not just because of the quality of the verse, but because it identifies the transcendent we can all identify with regardless of religious affiliation. Gardens will do that, I guess. I know I got a jolt yesterday when I saw my tomatoes swollen red with juice.

The second, unless you are Martha Stewart, will likely remind you of the holidays around your house. The first line, "No, honestly, we are more organised than we look," is a tone-setter. It's by Alison Brackenbury, who has a number of good (though non-holiday oriented) poems up at her site.

The third, well, as we say over here, chotto ... It's fine, but my least favorite of the bunch. Collectively, they make me want the book.

It'll have to wait until I'm home. Maybe for the next holiday.