So, looking for a holiday poem by recent interest Galway Kinnell, I came across the all too easy “To Christ Our Lord,” which is very nice, but I’m not religious in any sense, and it’s too easy.

Being in New York City, this one spoke to me more tonight, and brought to mind the Winter Solstice as well, the original reason for all this holiday nonsense:

Under the Williamsburg Bridge

I broke bread
At the riverbank,
I saw the black gull
Fly back black and crossed
By the decaying Paragon sign in Queens
Over ripped water, it screamed
Killing the ceremony of the dove,
Its wing muscles
Pulling apart my bones.

Tomorrow, On the bridge,
In some riveted cranny in the sky,
The great and wondrous sun will be shining
On a spider wrapping its fly in spittle-strings.

Speaking of the solstice, the Kinnell poem my mother original sent me, Insomniac, is also very good.

Finally, my friend K had a link to this BBC Live video of a cover of a Pogues song “Fairytale of New York,” which I didn’t know and is also amazingly written.