Royal High Bath Poet Laureate Christmas Poem

Winter’s Banquet
By Tatyana Gow

Never forget the hearty feast,
Or the rabble of sparrows will grieve,
And a robin, red as a valentine’s heart,
Will have nowhere to forage this eve.
A Christmas cake, a spiced delight,
Sits on the sill, a tempting sight.

Never presume the feast is done,
When feathered guests still roam the night,
A shrewd procession drawn to crumbs
By dreams of spring and warm sunlight.
Left on the sill, a sugary prize,
Observed by birds with hungry eyes.

Never ignore the need to be kind:
For company flickers where shadows grow long,
A lamentation of swans with frosted feather-tips
Wreathing the dusk in a candle-lit song.
Jay contemplates, with beady gaze,
The fleeting nature of sweet days.

Never doubt the joy of the banquet,
When starlings wheel in swirling glee,
Star-bellied, honey-fed, in drifting light,
Wild in blissful revelry.
The magpies ponder, as they dine,
On mysteries both deep and fine.

Never think the quiet dusk grows dull,
While owls convene on branches bare,
Their chocolate eyes aglow with gold,
And ravens waltz through winter’s prayer.
As dawn approached, the cake diminished,
A festive feast, exquisitely finished.

Never dismiss the birds in flight,
For each one braves the bite of snow,
And hearts—like wings—may shake and shiver
When winter’s hard winds will blow.
Yet some birds, upon arriving late,
Found naught but an empty plate.

Never forget the ones who came,
Through moonlit frost and silvered air,
A tapestry of wings and will,
All gathering at the feast we share.
For in their chorus, soft and bright,
We learn to love the longest night.