If We Could Keep That Hour

Leave every curtain where it falls.
Keep morning waiting in the halls.
Wake not the house. Delay the day.
Let Christmas linger where it lay.

Leave December morning at the door,
the stockings hanging as before;
keep frost like feathers on the pane,
and hold the dawn outside again.

Let no small foot disturb the stair,
nor shake the tinsel sleeping there.
Keep every parcel, bow and thread
beneath the tree where night has spread.

Let firelight breathe across the room.
Let oranges and pine perfume
the paper crowns, the candle flame,
the gifts still waiting for a name.

Keep there the rustle through the wall,
then feet that thunder down the hall.
No music ever matched the thrill
of children who could not lie still.

Keep there the question, barely said:
“Has he been?” from bed to bed.
Let no king nor choir ever bring
such hope upon a winter’s wing.

Keep there the kettle’s gentle song.
Keep ribbons where they still belong.
Keep every gift unopened still,
and every heart too full to fill.

Keep close the faces time has changed,
the chairs returned, the table ranged.
Let those no longer at the door
be somehow in the room once more.

Keep us within that Christmas dawn,
the hour for which the day was born;
when we want less, forgive the past,
and hold each other close at last.

Keep all of us around the tree,
on any patch of floor that’s free;
our scattered lives are gathered here.
Why only once in all the year?

If only we could keep that hour:
wake every dawn beneath its power,
and meet each morning as it starts
with that same wonder in our hearts.

This poem also exists in another form. Its words and illustrations have been carried onto silk, allowing the work to be worn, unfolded and returned to when Christmas comes round again. You can see If Only We Could Keep That Hour in silk here.