WINTER ' FOURTEEN
“sheep bells a softly ringing lullaby.”
Again that simplicity shines through here and it also reminds us of sleigh bells and those other good
old myths we used to believe but discard in adulthood. Should we not do the same with this is a tale of
a baby and of shepherds? In a way it’s a story about ordinary folk. Then all at once in stanza 4, the
supernatural takes over.
“There would have to be an angel.”
There would?
“The sky, a clear intoxicant, would
open and the angel would sing”
Really? “an intoxicant” Well yes. What are these guys on? Appealing to our logic, perhaps they’d
taken a wee nip of something against the chill. That would explain things.
So far Ron has challenged our belief but in the final stanza, he turns that inside out and challenges
our scepticism and he does it through the medium of language used in a traditional Christmas Carol,
The First Nowell, which people have been singing for two hundred years now – not two thousand. You
probably know how it goes and it tells the same story:
“The first Nowell the angels did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;
In fields where they lay a keeping their sheep”
“certain poor shepherds” doesn’t mean they were certain about anything. It is an old fashioned way
of saying ‘some’, or maybe even, ‘a chosen few’. Whatever the case, those shepherds were impressed
enough to leave their flock and go down to see this new baby. Shepherds do not neglect their duties
lightly. Sheep were their livelihood. Why would they do that? And why would they take the risk of talking
about it all over the place; spreading the word? They’d have to be pretty certain it was real, wouldn’t they?
So maybe they were utterly convinced of the supernatural.
And there Ron ends the poem – on the word ‘certain.’ And with that phrase;
“and be certain.”
Or to be precise
“spread the word
and be certain.”
The Linnet's Wings Poetry, Winter 2014