Ann Pilling

One Christmas hangs in memory like lamps

in a deep wood, the year the village band

chugged up our hill in an old van and set up

over the road in a gateway. Their forest green

jackets were snibbed with silver, cornets and tubas

slicing the dark like moons, and what looked like flowers,

white flowers blooming in winter, turned out to be sheep

jockeying for position as the word got round.

Later I went out for coal and heard, floating up from Keld,

Away in a Manger, misty on the night air.

The sheep hadn’t budged from the gate but the flock had spread

a great wing over the fell as it stood there listening,

stone-still, waiting for the next move.

Ann Pilling