The very first home I ever had was a very small two up and two down terrace house
but my Mum had a large oak dresser. She told me that the big, wide drawers of this
dresser had been the cot for many babies, lying beside her bed, ‘all wrapt in swaddling
clothes’ as the hymn has it. It had been her cot and all three of my brothers had slept in
it, then me and finally my sisters. This was quite common. I miss that oak dresser and
used to wonder often if it was anything like a manger.
A COLD CHRISTMAS
A thin, fine, dusting of frost glitters
On the dark roof of the shed
Standing at the end of the cold garden,
Ragged green and silvered weeds
Pressing around the empty doorway,
As if peering in at something
That might be happening
Inside that freezing emptiness,
Waiting for a blaze of warmth and light
To fill the barren bitterness.
Well, that miracle happened once
On a dark and freezing night.
Now, thorn red berries tipped with frosty crowns
Gather as quietly as a whispered warning,
Resting their icy faces
Against the cracked and frozen windows
Of a place cold enough to perish in.
There was no glamour then and there’s none now.
No twinkling tinsel, no soft lights glowing.
Just a woman’s baby lying in a manger,
The ox bringing a bit of warmth to the deadly coldness,
The donkey adding a little more,
Its long ears twitching at the patient man,
At the watchful woman waiting,
At the shepherds worshipping
This holy baby bathed in lamp light,
Moon light and love’s pure light.
Until that other freezing night
When three Kings came riding
To this icy, bitter shed.
Bringing their fabulous gifts,
Their aristocratic knees bending
To the little holy King,
Who already had a thorn red frosted crown
Waiting for His head.
© 2018 Gwen Grant
Poems by Gwen Grant 
