11th December, 2015

Friday Poem – For Christmas

This week’s poem is from Christine Evans’ 2007 Wales Book of the Year shortlisted collection, Growth Rings, published in 2006.

This collection from Christine Evans follows well-received Selected Poems.  Hers is a sensitive and persuasive voice, highly attuned to the vagries of the seasons, to the landscapes and inhabitants of the beautiful Llyn Peninsula in North Wales where the author has made her home.

As well as vibrant short lyrics on everything from ‘Bluebells in Nanhoron’ to jets flying over Wales, there are a series of tender elegiac pieces on relatives, meditations on the last moments of Shelley and the fates of the Brontes, and a number of poems featuring the mysterious Island of Bardsey.

For Christmas

Hubble shows us this:
the star factory in Sagittarius
where time’s a flying strand
looping from a furnace

where, out of the flux, out of the fire,
a boilover of hydrogen and sulphur,
cobalt and vermilion
from the radiant debris,

a scatter of new stars
streams out, seeds of light.
Pinpricks in our darkness:
guides as good as any for the journey.

Order Growth Rings from our website.