It’s time to take down the Christmas decorations, a time that is difficult for some, a relief for others.  I have mixed feelings this year.  I’ve enjoyed Christmas, but having moved house recently, I will be replacing decorations with a few personal touches.  I will finally unpack my ornaments and set them out on a display shelf.  I am looking forward to seeing my china Russian dolls, my wooden animals and wind-up toys – yes, I am a child at heart!  In the meantime, I’ve indulged a sense of melancholy that can descend in the post-Christmas hush, in this poem, simply entitled ‘Tree’.

Tree

I take down the tree,
unwreathe its arms
of tinsel and bauble.
Now it is pure
and green and dark,
a figure without cover.

I ask it questions
of Christmas past.
Who dressed you then?
Who was your angel?

The tree is sullen, has
lost some tufts of plastic fir,
is getting a stoop,
a bend,
a twist.

Next year, I may leave it
propped, against my suitcase,
in the spare room,
let it dream.

K. S. Moore