Just before last Christmas, my wife’s cousin Steve managed to take some photos of a robin who had gatecrashed the Christmas section of The Range, a superstore that specialises in non-food items. I wanted to celebrate the event with a poem to commemorate the (European) Robin’s place in the lexicon of a British Christmas…but I didn’t manage to get it finished to my own satisfaction last Christmas. Here it is, a year later.

(photo credits – Stephen Dodgson

A ROBIN AT THE RANGE

There’s a robin at The Range.

Note the use of capital letters here

To distinguish between the solid fuel oven

That once heated country kitchens

From the discount warehouse which is…

At best a cornucopia for all your Christmas needs:

At worst a confrontation with future flotsam and jetsam.

So, this robin I was telling you about

He stands, for I have decided it’s a he,

If only to ease the passage of pronouns,

From this confused, constipated writer.

He’s a real breathing organic robin,

Rotund and fluffed up for the day ahead.

A brave, beating-heart-swelled body

Balanced on two splayed legs of floral wire.

He stands, wings tucked behind his back;

A redcoat General inspecting the troops

Assembled on this battlefield of consumerism.

He marshals the landscape, this synthetic territory,

With its palette of red, green, silver, gold and white;

So much white…shelves…boxes…packaging…

Trees dusted with snow that can never melt.

But he seems at ease with the place;

Blending in; camouflaged in his spiritual home,

Hopping from bargain to gift idea.

He settles on a nativity scene unaware

That country-folk promised never to harm him

Because his song soothed the suffering

Of their Lord on the cross. Leaving him

Forever stained by the blood of Christ.

He pops up and faces-off a familiar rotund rival

Who appears in a silver bauble at his landing.

He’s seen him before and tweets his tick-tick rage

But once again there is no response from the fat robin.

In a huff, he resumes his airborne surveillance;

Flitting around like a browsing shopper,

Eager for ideas and inspiration…much like a poet

He stands upon wooden words…LOVE…HOME…PEACE

Seeing them as nothing more than a platform…

A base from which to discover new landfall

Until he alights once more amid the illumined festive bulbs;

Juxtaposing between the plastic pines and fake firs.

What draws him here; to this land of wonder?

Does he feel deep down in his tiny bones

The genetic pull of a homespun cultural DNA?

That tells him this is where he is meant to be;

And not in the grey mizzle of a Cornish Christmas?

He might never see snow in his short life

But it’s brighter here…warmer…more Christmassy

If he were ever to understand that word

In this land of silver and gold foliage;

A long way from summer’s bounty.

Here he can bask in the familiar healthy glow

Of those hundred strip-lit suns in a cloudless sky;

Yet the call of hunger is never far away

And he searches in vain for fruit to eat

Among the luscious berries of holly wreaths

That only deceive with their plumpness.

He finds himself in the gardening section,

This friend of the green-fingered but

Where are the insects, the spiders and worms

He wonders? Unaware he is perched above

Plastic packs of birdseed, mealworms and fat balls

That will be bought to feed some other robin who

Hasn’t had the option of wintering in this warmer clime.

His search for food goes on and once more

He tidies up the cake crumbs in the cafeteria

Before the tables can be cleared;

This robin reliant on the carelessness of consumers.

© graylightfoot