Today’s show is Jack’s annual tribute to poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953). Dylan Thomas is heard reading his classic story, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” along with some other poems. “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” begins,
“One Christmas was so much like the other, in those years around the sea-town corner now, out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve, or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
“All the Christmases roll down towards the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged, fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.”
Jack’s poem for this season:
THIS YEAR’S TREE
I look up
I look up
and see
and see
lights
lights
against
against
treedark
treedark
thoughts
thoughts
of childhood, toys
of childhood, toys
moments
moments
of deep
of deep
happiness
happiness
my delight then
my delight then
and something more
and something more
now:
now:
magic
magic
against the dark
against the dark
against the
against the
oppressiveness
oppressiveness
of age
of age
not faith
not faith
but recognized
but recognized
longing
longing
which has its power
which has its power
though I lack belief:
though I lack belief:
fables
fables
to find
to find
our hunger in
our hunger in
Answered by Jake Berry:
In the depth most of darkness
– a sudden light –
as if by magic
Is that only the sun?
What can be only about the sun?
Without it no life is possible
And it could erase all life at a whim –
total fire, total light forever
In the depth most of darkness
a sudden light
and a promise
that green will return