Thinking about thinking about what a poem might do

For you if I wrote a poem about Christmas for you,

And writing what I wondered such a poem might be,

And wondering what such a writing might make, for me -

Christmas! I thought. The day that has become a word,

The word a day, carried ahead because you've cared.

You must have said yes, when I said Christmas, and yes,

Throw it away to the cold, or would not be here to guess

Next Christmas. We could not, but for a ringing of bells,

Know, and know, and tell each other what Christmas tells.

Christmas is an ending, as always, and a beginning,

As always anniversaries are a losing, and a gaining.

It is the bottom of the year, bare, the dark of earth.

We have come this long long way in the poem together.

Now we must get out of it, count beyond winter solstice

Up the mount of spring and summer down to next Christmas,

To the next beginning, and for the beginning after that.

We'll wreathe it again, shall we? This wreath I write

Rings us fir and stars and berries. Hang it in your doors.

It is not mine, but when I give it to you, it is ours.