(1) The Face of The Virgin, (The Feast of the Holy Innocents).. (2) December Daffodils / Winter Tulips. (3) The longest Night. (4) The Wind.

                 1.


The Face of the Virgin.      (The Feast of the Holy Innocents).


In the back streets of Bethlehem some women are screaming -
The soldiers exultant - a kid dead at their feet -
"Crack shots enforce order", the gunman said.

                            *

Her face - pale in the church window -
Pensive among gold angel wings
Spread to shield the derelict stable
From the stiletto thrust of desert winds
Cutting through the cold back streets
Of war torn Bethlehem.

Her face - neither Arab nor Israeli -
But North Italian - if my guide book is right -
Portrays to perfection the love of Mother Mary
For her boy child - born one violent night -
The shrieks of racists echoing through the city -
The flames of rockets arcing through the sky.

Her face - pale with love that defeats ideology
As she breast feeds the child cocooned in her arms -
Illuminates the altar with a frail clear light.-
At noon her features glimmer with a cool sensitivity -
At night the stone pallor of the distant moon
Spot lights her faintly in the walled off quire.

                             *

In the back streets of Bethlehem some women are screaming -
The soldiers exultant - a kid dead at their feet -
"Genocide creates order", King Herod said.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 6th. 2014. - December 23rd. - 25th. - 26th. - 28th.2015.
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                   3.

     December Daffodils.


Daffodils in December?
I wish they would go back to sleep,
We can wait a little longer for spring.

                   *

        Winter Tulips?


My tulips are much more sensible;
Their cups stay buried deep in the earth
While my daffodils show off their audacity
And toast the winter solstice.

December is Janus faced,
Never sure in which direction to look.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 23rd. 2015.
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                     4.

      The Longest Night.


Finally we have made the bridge:
Last night was the longest night;
The sun now blinks one eye
With the speed of an atomic clock
Re adjusting worldwide time
To another new beginning. I turn
Over in bed, my back turned to the
                          curtained window.
One minute more of sunlight means
                one minute less to sleep.
Winter is the season for dreaming,
Not for the licking of old time wounds.
"Make it new", the dissident poet said,
Make it new now the daylight is lengthening.
I look back to the bridge just crossed,
It has melted away in the shadows.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 22nd. - 23rd. 2015.
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                  4.

          The Wind.


The wind hustling through the willows
Is making a great deal of noise;
Or perhaps I am hearing the willows
Teaching the wind their speech.
Weird to think that nature is packed with
                  a library of ancient languages
That have never required the muscle of a
                                             human brain
to power them into shape.
Languages that do not require human ears,
Delicate human eyes, hands as soft as silk
To pick up the gist of a meaning. -
Last night when I was trying to awaken the
                                               animal in you
When all you offered to do was turn over and
sleep,
I was far too aware of the bustling gusts of the wind
Rearranging the landscape outside, to feel the quick
feral thump of my heart
As it tried to switch gear to the rhythm of your pulse,
The calm ebb and flow of your breathing.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 20th. - 23rd. - 24th. 2015.