This Christmas, dear God
I hope it’s not odd
that I’m writing you this letter.
Some ink-splattered rhymes
to make sense of these times
that I’d hoped would be far better.

It’s a rambling prayer,
staggering here and there,
I’m like a hiker lost in dark hills;
where the valley runs deep
and the mountains loom steep
and the storm clouds gather ill will.

Out east is Mount Vlad
(what a year he has had
shovelling boys to their deaths in Ukraine).
But then Kremlin fist pumps
as his old buddy Trump
goes and wins him some power again.

To the west then, Mount Don,
and the second term’s on,
will he do all the things that he said?
Will Musk be his scent,
fight, fight, fight?…or relent
and stick to the golf course instead?

Mount Middle East…
a volcanic beast,
you must grieve for the place of your birth.
That the land where you preached
blessed, those who make peace,
is descending to sheer hell on earth.

Shrouded in mist
all the peaks that are missed
by the headlines disgorged to our screens.
Is Sudan just too poor
that we’d care for their war,
or Myanmar, the Sahel, DRC?

This Christmas, dear God
perhaps it’s not odd
that despair seems to blacken my ink.
Cos it’s hard not to feel
you’re asleep at the wheel,
as the world speeds headlong to the brink.

God replied: “My dear child
I know times are wild
and the valley grows deeper in shade.
But hear once again
the Christmas refrain
I have seen it, do not be afraid.

“Evil schemes, they will pass,
tyrants wither like grass,
nations rise and nations will fall.
But my love that took form
as a babe, manger born,
is the power that will outlast them all.

So my child do not rest
in the valley of death,
downcast soul, arise from your knees.”
Then, as if in a dream,
he showed me a scene
of a shed by a stream and three trees.

In the dream I was led
by a star to the shed
where the door was a curtain, full torn.
And cast on the floor
lay some crowns, there were four,
three of gold and one made of thorns.

Then a shepherd appeared
who, through joy-glistened tears,
said: “Go in and worship the king.”
And strangely afraid
I strangely obeyed
as an angel started to sing.

The king sat, quite calm,
odd wounds marred his palms,
his ‘throne’, just a bale of old straw.
Then I glanced in his face
and a torrent of grace
overwhelmed me; I fell to the floor.

Grace then spoke: “My dear child
I know times are wild
And the valley grows deeper in shade.
But hear once again
the Christmas refrain
I have walked it, do not be afraid.”

Then he reached out a hand,
and asked me to stand,
and his eyes seemed to glimmer with light.
“I’ll come with you,” he said,
“through the valleys you dread.”
And he guided me into the night.