CHRISTMAS IN AMIENS Comments

You were born on Christmas Eve,
Swaddled in a supermarket carryall

And laid to rest on the urban rubbish-tip.
That day your town

Had bats in the belfry
Where once hungry tramps were locked up
To ring for worship.

There, among gargoyles waiting

To sing with Spring rains,
They swung the iron tongues

Too heavy for body,

Summoning, far under their dancing feet,
Princes of State and Church
To kneel by the fatherless baby image Laid in straw.

Duty done, the priest filled their scrip.
Now the tramp, still bearing
The ancient name of "bellringer",
Winters on refuse-heaps

Swinging the lead of memory

Or watching frozen gargoyles
On the Christmas dole.

One of them found you

Kicking blue under your first blanket

Of snow - it was the last straw -

And his tongue brought Midnight Mass-goers
Scrambling up the ice-solid

Disposables, plastics, rubble,

To kneel with him and you

Who seemed to have dropped

From the cold stars.

The ambulance took you to safety.

Your saviour retumed to the anonymity

Of a bellringer searching for refuse
While, on the distant cathedral,
Glaring at the heaven's snow-job,
Gargoyles choked on ice

Waited for the sun to spew
The season from their mouths.
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