Teacher's Christmas
(from Watching Brief: Peterloo Poets 1987)
It’s not so much the ones whose cards don’t come,
Friends of one’s parents, old distinguished colleagues
Who taught the colonies &, retiring home,
Did a spot of dignified coaching. Their sudden silence
Is a well-bred withdrawal, not unexpected
But those who move from address to more sheltered address,
Whose writing gutters gently year by year,
Whose still hoping to see you again after love
Is bluff; or those who write after Christmas
Because cards are so expensive now. Ah those, how those
Punctiliously chart their long decline.
First the stages grow familiar, like disease.
First it’s my dauntless Mini, less staunch now,
But I could come by bus, with sandwiches.
I shall enjoy the jaunt.
WEA classes go. Then television
Becomes remote, & radio’s
Hard for the hard of hearing. Still they write,
They write at Christmas. Prithee, good death’s-heads,
Bid me not remember mine end.
Season as well of cards from brilliant girls,
A little less incisive every year,
Reporting comings & goings: another Hannah,
Another Jamie; another husband going off; and
Writing my thesis is like digging a well with a pin.
You, the storm-troopers of a newer, better world.
Down with you, holly. Come down, ivy
It was my own brief experience of teaching which put me off the idea of sending Christmas cards - I received nearly 400 that year when those from girls at school were included. Which was excessive, to say the least
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