Poem of the Day: ‘Twelfth Night’

The 12 Days of Christmas begin with Christmas, rather than end with the holiday — a point about the calendar made so repeatedly, to so little effect, that it’s not really worth mentioning again. Except perhaps to say that tomorrow is Epiphany, which marks the arrival of the Three Wise Men, bearing gifts for the infant Jesus. And that means today, January 5, is the twelfth day of Christmas — which makes tonight Twelfth Night. This was traditionally an evening of skits and parties, with a Lord of Misrule leading the festivities (“cakes and ale,” as the drunken Sir Toby proclaims in Shakespeare’s own twelfth-night play). In today’s Poem of the Day, however, Sally Thomas (b. 1964), takes up the other aspect of the festival, for Twelfth Night and Epiphany are also the end of the joyous Christmas season. Ms. Thomas is the Sun’s associate poetry editor, and we’ve featured her work before with “Hawks in Holy Week,” “Hindsight,” and “The Bell.” In her New Formalist work, she often employs difficult stanza forms. “Twelfth Night,” for example, is terza rima: sets of three-line stanzas in which the first and third lines rhyme, with the second line providing the rhyme for the next stanza.The poem (which will appear in her forthcoming 2024 volume, “Among the Living”) begins with a wry observation of the fact that the Christmas decorations have been up for weeks, long enough for a spider’s web to connect two of the Wise Men. Yet the time of these crèche figures is measured not just in the days they’ve been scattered around the house but the many holidays they have been displayed with their “re-glued-on fingers”: “After thirty Christmases, these touring companies / Begin to feel their age.” In her pentameter lines, Ms. Thomas sees that the detritus of Christmas on Twelfth Night is “the leavings time has strewn / Before the infant king” — both the leavings of this particular Christmas and the leavings of our lives over the many past years. Twelfth Night by Sally ThomasAlready a spider’s run a shining skein Between one standing magus and one who kneels, Offering myrrh. Outside, a too-warm rain Pounds the early spears of daffodils Who’ve rushed their cue and think it’s Holy Week. Inside, the manger occupies all mantels. The child is everywhere. Our wise men seek Him still, throughout the house. In knots of three They travel, bearing fragile gifts that break From their re-glued-on fingers. After thirty Christmases, these touring companies Begin to feel their age like you and me. Our berries drop. By shuddering degrees, Our candles drown themselves in waxen lakes. The tree’s a staring corpse. Stars in a blaze Of silver glitter, hung from wires like fish-hooks, Gaze down on the leavings time has strewn Before the infant king who, smiling, looks Steadfastly at the air, changeless and clean.___________________________________________With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems are drawn from the deep traditions of English verse: the great work of the past and the living poets who keep those traditions alive. The goal is always to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘Twelfth Night’

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