stdClass Object
(
    [ID] => 20612
    [post_author] => 18
    [post_date] => 2019-12-06 12:19:18
    [post_date_gmt] => 2019-12-06 12:19:18
    [post_content] => 

with thoughts and images dreamt up by London schoolchildren

I walk through Winter’s city,
my footsteps stain the snow.
The darkness shuts like curtains.
It’s later than I know.

Dark is a heart that’s breaking,
Dark is a dream you lose.
Dark is a pounding headache
that makes the world a maze

and then a speck of something,
I see a candle-flame –
a tiny seed that flickers.
I hear Hope say my name.

The seed becomes a golden flower
of pouring light, a gift.
I need you to believe, Hope says.
It’s you makes me exist.

I feel bright feathers lifting.
I hear a tiger’s roar.
I’ve taken many forms, Hope says –
changing is what I’m for.

At Christmas-time I settle
into the shape of tree –                                  
alive, sharp, resin rising.
Hope shines and darkness flees

and I can see a future
as clocks chime their late hour
for Hope will be our present,
and Hope will give us power.
    [post_title] => The Gift
    [post_excerpt] => 
    [post_status] => publish
    [comment_status] => closed
    [ping_status] => closed
    [post_password] => 
    [post_name] => the-gift-2
    [to_ping] => 
    [pinged] => 
    [post_modified] => 2021-01-11 14:25:24
    [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-01-11 14:25:24
    [post_content_filtered] => 
    [post_parent] => 0
    [guid] => http://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=20612
    [menu_order] => 0
    [post_type] => poems
    [post_mime_type] => 
    [comment_count] => 0
    [filter] => raw
    [meta_data] => stdClass Object
        (
            [wpcf-published-in] => 
            [wpcf-date-published] => 2019
            [wpcf-summary-description] => Commissioned to decorate the annual Trafalgar Square Christmas tree, with banner artwork by Marcus Walters, as part of The Poetry Society's annual Look North More Often programme.
            [wpcf-rights-information] => 
            [wpcf-poem-award] => 
            [wpcf_pr_belongs] => 
        )

    [poet_data] => stdClass Object
        (
            [ID] => 12613
            [forename] => 
            [surname] => 
            [title] => Clare Pollard
            [slug] => clare-pollard
            [content] => Clare Pollard is the editor of Modern Poetry in Translation. She has published five collections of poetry with Bloodaxe, the latest of which is Incarnation (2017). Her translation projects have included a new version of Ovid’s Heroines (2013), which she toured as a one-woman show with Jaybird Live Literature, and a co-translation of Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf’s The Sea-Migrations (2017) which was The Sunday Times Poetry Book of the Year 2017. She was a judge for The Poetry Society's Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize 2015, and was the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree poet in 2019 in The Poetry Society's Look North More Often project.
        )

)

stdClass Object
(
    [ID] => 12613
    [forename] => 
    [surname] => 
    [title] => Clare Pollard
    [slug] => clare-pollard
    [content] => Clare Pollard is the editor of Modern Poetry in Translation. She has published five collections of poetry with Bloodaxe, the latest of which is Incarnation (2017). Her translation projects have included a new version of Ovid’s Heroines (2013), which she toured as a one-woman show with Jaybird Live Literature, and a co-translation of Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf’s The Sea-Migrations (2017) which was The Sunday Times Poetry Book of the Year 2017. She was a judge for The Poetry Society's Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize 2015, and was the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree poet in 2019 in The Poetry Society's Look North More Often project.
)