Christmas Card in a Poem

I don't do Christmas cards anymore, but for the last decade or so, I've done a Christmas poem instead as my seasonal message to everyone I care about (which includes all of you). 

The last couple of years I wrote English Madrigals, and before that there was a run of a few Sevenlings. This year, I felt that a Terza Rima, with its sound-echo repeating pattern, best suited the times. (Despite the fact that this Italian form is difficult to use in English because of the relative paucity of rhyme words available in a language which has, in comparison with Italian, a more complex phonology. But then, when did I ever like to make things easy for myself?) 

 So with this, please accept my warmest wishes for a day of peace and plenty tomorrow, whether you mark it as Christmas or simply enjoy a day of pause and rest, of cherishing yourselves and each other. 

 Kurt Vonnegut probably said it best: "There's only one rule that I know of, babies - God damn it, you've got to be kind.” After this difficult year, let us all look for kindness, and give it unstintingly. 

 Lights: Christmas 2020 

 In my hands is a small light, stuttering. 

it is a small light, but is not afraid; 

this hand-cupped star, pale-gold flame fluttering 

 It is a small light, and it does not say 

that every single debt is fully paid 

that all the darkness will be washed away. 

 This hard and hurtful year is now decayed, 

and hearts and hearths call out to bring you home 

all joys grow deeper when they are delayed 

 the festive tableaux set in polychrome, 

the small lights and the bright ones pierce the night 

the year is ebbing, leaving only foam. 

 And with Christmas Day finally in sight 

I wish you all compassion for this end; 

there may be no magic to make things right 

 but there is love, and kindness, here to spend: 

and there are other people; every heart 

carrying its own light; and so we bend 

 all the darkness away; and here, we start 

to put together what was torn apart.