Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, December 18th, 2024.

And it is exactly one week until Christmas Day.

And so today's poem by James Merrill is called Christmas Tree.

The time leading up to Christmas, though, the Advent season is

one of anticipation, but also one that is emotionally mixed. It is this time of darkness before the

dawning of the light at Christmas. Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

the Christmas Carol goes. And so there's a tinge of melancholy in some of the songs and poems

that really emphasized that anticipatory time before Christmas, and I think today's poem is one of those.

It's, it is a poem that if you heard it described, you might raise an eyebrow.

It is a shape poem.

It's a poem in the shape of a Christmas tree.

It's also a poem spoken largely in the shape of a Christmas tree. It's also a poem spoken largely in the voice of a Christmas tree,

which those two details alone taken on their own don't inspire a lot of confidence,

but I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the poem that emerges.

It was published just a few months after the death of Merrill, who, as he wrote the poem,

was dying of a terminal illness, but he had not told anyone that he was sick.

So he knew that his death was approaching, but no one else did. I think that

dichotomy is present in the poem, which lends a gravity and seriousness to it, even as the

thoughts and reflections of the Christmas tree are rather humorous. And then there were echoes even of the Christ child

himself, who becomes a man and comes to earth in the nativity only to grow up and die. And the way that

Merrill blends all of these voices together is truly remarkable. So to get us started on the last stretch

...