My Gift

What can I give him

Poor as I am;

If I were a shepherd,

I would give Him a lamb.

If I were a wise man

I would do my part.

But what can I give Him

I  will give Him my heart

Christina Rossetti

The Meaning of Christmas

Christmas, like the Bible,

Means varied things to man—

To some a reawakening

Of God’s momentous plan.

To some a day of gladness,

A special time and place,

To give a gift, to greet a friend

Or wear a smiling face

But some there are, who seem to me,

Forever set apart;

Who through the years serenely walk

With Christmas in their heart

Evelyn R. Liddell

Extracts From "Journey of the Magi"

"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
.....
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
....
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
....
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
....
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

.....All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different;

....

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
T.S.Eliot

painting "The Magi" by James Tissot, 1894

A Christmas Tree

Star,

if you are

a love compassionate

you will walk with us this year.

we face a glacial distance, who are here

huddled

at your feet.

William Burford

In 1976, in grade 11 Office Practice class, your mom learned to manually center typed work on an old typewriter with this poem

The Shepherd Left Behind

"The hour is late," the shepherds said,

   "And the miles are long to wind;
Do you stay here with the sheep, instead!"
   And they left the lad behind.
He heard their feet in the dark ravine,
   The drop of the sheepfold bars,
And then blue stillness flowed between
   The huddled sheep and stars.
He sat him down to wait for dawn,
    His crook across his knees,
And thought of the shepherds moving on
   Under the olive trees.
Herding his flocks in Palestine
   He thought, that lad of old,
How some must follow the Angel's sign
   And some must tend the fold.
And as he mused he took his pipe
   'Twas a shepherd's pipe he had
And there, while the frosty stars grew ripe
   And shone on the shepherd lad,
The first sweet Christmas carol twined
   From the willow's slender stem-
Blown by the shepherd left behind
   To a Babe in Bethlehem.

Mildred Plew Meigs 

picture is part of the painting "Procession of the Magi"
by Benozzo Gossoli
in the Capella dei Maggi

for a panoramic (but small) view http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/benozzo-gozzoli/procession-of-the-magi-1461

From "Definition of Poetry"

Once

I took a course in aesthetics:

Three hours credit

If I could learn

What a poem was.

A poem was

“the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and happiest minds”;

“The best words in the best order”;

“A criticism of life.”

But what was “best”?

....

A poem was metered, rhythmic, regular—

Except free verse.

A poem rhymed—

But not blank verse.

A poem had consonance, assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia—

Or none of these.   

a poem used a “higher concentration of imagery” than prose.

“But how high is high?

.....

Finally we were told, “A poem should not mean, but be.”

Be what?

To answer the question for myself

I wrote a term paper

“A Definition of Poetry.”

The instructor gave it an “A”

But I never wrote

A poem.

Lynn Z. Bloom

Butler University,  Indianapolis

Why is There So Much Swearing on the Internet?

It's like this, says Katie

"Swearing is like salt in a salt shaker; a little bit adds flavour.
But you're unscrewing the lid and dumping the whole thing all over the place!"