Do you send Christmas cards? Here’s why you should
Poet and artist Frieda Hughes finds the deadline for sending cards is fast approaching – and with it, swathes of feeling...
CHRISTMAS CARDS
When the first one arrived in November, I placed it unopened
On the old mahogany sideboard, where it languished.
A week later, there were half a dozen more to heap on top of it,
And now, a daily scattering on the doormat, reminding me
That Christmas is here again, only weeks since the last one,
Delivering itself a piece at a time, as I stack and restack
The unopened envelopes as if avoidance will hold back time’s tide
And I will not age, my animals and owls will not die,
The garden weeds will not grow, and the air itself will pause
On an intake of breath, while I scrabble for names and addresses
And the prettiest image from my stock of folded printings.
But on my office desk, singled out from last year’s invasion
Are the changes of names and addresses sent by friends
Whose new details I have not yet noted, since between receipt
And now, there were paintings to finish, poems to write
And shadows to shift. Some things were so difficult
That I’d wake in the night trying to undo the mental knots.
And now the year is over and my deadline for updates
Is the day I send out the cards. So, for now, they wait, and wait,
My guilt dusting their envelopes, as I prevaricate.