Artificial Evergreen
In lofts and attics across the nation,
Lying in anticipation,
Waiting for a day to seize:
A million plastic Christmas trees.
In the dark forgotten places,
Amongst the junk and old suitcases,
A much-loved, unplayed tape collection,
Camping chairs and ZX Spectrums,
Borne with practised faithful patience
They spend their year-long hibernations,
But in the coming days and weeks
As hatches swing and ladders creak,
And telescopic steps descend
Their quarantine comes to an end.
A torchlit cobweb-dodging rummage
Retrieves the treasure from the luggage
To take its place at the heart of things,
Bedecked in lights and angel’s wings.
They’ll stand, once more, in living rooms
To lighten and dispel the gloom,
To symbolise the weeks to come,
The friendship, family and fun,
The peace and hope, the calm serene
Artificial but evergreen.
The future, suddenly exciting:
Blow the dust off. Let the light in.
We need to get our Christmas tree out of the attic. So went my thought process this morning, and so inspired the first door of the Poetry Advent Calendar 2021! That said, I still haven’t got the Christmas tree out of the attic.
It will be my second year with an artificial tree (see last year) but that means it will be my first year bringing last year’s tree back in from the cold as well, which feels like a new sense of occasion. Whenever it actually happens.
Talking of being out in the cold, we had a real tree last year too, albeit a titchy one, stood outside the front door. Because it was still in soil, we kept it alive (which is no small achievement, given my gardening skills) and I’m pleased to say it’s still going strong a year later, in a new perch in the back garden. I’ll try and share a photo on the Doors to come.
Talking of which (I might just just every paragraph like that) today’s photo is of my actual loft hatch. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a masterful photo, up there with Martin Parr or Robert Capa in their pomp. The windows underneath are above the bedroom doors, which I quite like, in a weird modernist sense, but which are also quite infuriating if someone else gets up to go for a wee in the middle of the night and puts the landing light on. Let the light in indeed.
I love that phrase (talking of which). It’s the second time I’ve used it in a poem, the first time in a piece I wrote about the K8 telephone kiosk. It was meant to be the first in a series of poems about British telephone box design of the 20th century but I stalled somewhere around the K4, which is a shame. Maybe one day. I was also going to submit that same poem to The Modernist magazine for their next issue, but missed the deadline, which is incredibly on brand for me, and which I regret everytime I think about it. Which is surprisingly often.
Maybe I’ll post it on here one day instead, although it’s got nothing to do with Advent, and now we’ve started on a Christmassy note it would be good to contine in this vein for at least a few days.
Somehow, I’ve also managed to fit a tribute to the late Sir Clive Sinclair in this poem as well. My brother and Mum found my Dad’s old ZX Spectrum in the attic (I think) last weekend. They sold it to a member of our pub quiz team for fifteen quid, complete with a game based on the Wimpy restaurant. Which I would’ve quite liked, to be honest.
Anyway, that’s probably enough ramble for the first Door. Tonight it’s the Merseyside Derby, so we’ve all got better things to be doing. Weirdly the Merseyside Derby quite often happens at the beginning of Advent, and it even made it into a poem on this blog a couple of years ago. That poem also drew inspiration from the house where my Granny used to live, which is where I live now. That’s my Granny’s loft hatch, staring down at us. Nothing ever leaves us completely, does it? Talk about evergreen.
Up the Reds, and up to the attic. Twenty four days to go…
Owen x
The Poetry Advent Calendar 