Advent Poem Tree
$60.00
The 2025 edition! Twenty five wintry poems quietly celebrate the first 25 days of December. Hand-rolled, -hole punched and -assembled with care. Edited by Brooke Herter James. c Suzy Becker 2025
Description
(Spoiler alert: The un-holepunched text of all of the poems is HERE.)
December 1
Advent
By Rainer Maria Rilke
The wind in winter woods is like
a shepherd to his flock of flakes
and soon the firs anticipate
how blessed will be the light
and eavesdrop. The garden doves
ready themselves in branches white
and fend off the wind, growing towards
the glory of this night.
December 2
Hidden Water
By Keith Walker
A seamless mirror fills
the bay, empty except
the row of gulls pointing
to the arctic, perfect
except the wreckage
of fractured ice
dumped on the rocks
like old appliances.
This is where we live,
on the banks where soul
and flesh and breath
and bone collide,
daily broken, roughly
healed, in the fall
and lift of hidden water.
December 3
Snow Poem
By Brian Bilston
words
fell
from
the
sky
today
i
stood
and
watched
them
snowin’
and as they settled on the ground,
they turned into this poem.
December 4
Oh, Winter
By Carol Young
I whisper hope for January,
long for lunar new year and her good luck red,
wait for bulbs
to break spring’s earth.
July is corn
and August shuts summer’s screen door.
September is a Ticonderoga pencil
and October shrieks goblins.
There is something about
the elbow of November to December.
My neighbor lights her candles
and I remember a flyer calling for carolers.
Silent light and the first snowflake
lands on Jasper’s nose.
I hear the jingle of his collar
and he wriggles his back in the snow.
Paws up. It is his joy again.
Oh, winter.
December 5
Two Haiku
By Clifford Rames
I
under the snow moon
the white of a rabbit’s tail
slipping out the gate
II
deepening winter—
the old dog no longer wakes
when I slipper by
December 6
Yule Tree
By Deb Franzoni
When the town
lit its Christmas tree
Saturday night,
A tall, old pine
in front of the library
I watched a child
take in with her eyes
the surprise
of so many lights
And I was reminded,
as time slipped by
the small girl
and me,
there is much good
in this world.
December 7
December
By Michael Leunig
I cannot quite remember
The wistful pangs elusive
That hover in December,
So gently inconclusive:
The floating shapes of grace
So strong and yet so brief,
The fleeting sweet embrace
Of gratitude and grief.
December 8
Winter Night
By Edna St. Vincent Millay
Pile high the hickory and the light
Log of chestnut struck by the blight.
Welcome in the winter night.
The day has gone in hewing and felling,
Sawing and drawing wood to the dwelling
For the night of talk and story-telling.
These are the hours that give the edge
To the blunted axe and the bent wedge,
Straighten the saw and lighten the sledge.
Here are question and reply,
And the fire reflected in the thinking eye.
So peace, and let the bob-cat cry.
December 9
#2
By Naomi Shihab Nye
It is a new day, chill and icy like a cold, sharp, knife.
It is a new day in a long line of new days in a life.
OH! OH! OH!
I walk in wonder to watch
The bundled people in the early light returning with nods
A morning hello
And to think we felt alone all night.
December 10
Snow Day
by Billy Collins
Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows
the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.
In a while, I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch
sending a cold shower down on us both.
But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news
that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed.
the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with—some will be delighted to hear—
the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and—clap your hands—the Peanuts Play School.
So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.
And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.
December 11
Winter-Time
By Robert Louis Stevenson
Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.
Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.
Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.
When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.
Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding-cake.
December 12
Ice Storm
By Brooke Herter James
The birches are shivering,
the shad tree’s on her rimy knees,
the pine grove is droop-shouldered
like a football team crossing the field
after losing the home-coming game.
Plus, the power is out
and the house is growing cold.
But here comes the neighbor
in muck boots, delivering
a loaf of sour dough bread.
And from each pocket
of his farm coat, he pulls a jar—
sweet dilly pickles and blueberry jam.
I swear that kindness makes its own weather.
Feel how the breeze has suddenly turned soft
with the westerly sun peeking through.
The pines are shaking off their mood,
the shad tree’s unbuckling
and the birches are ceasing their lament.
The power may still be off,
but the woodstove is roaring,
the day’s near done and who knew
how good an ice-cold beer could taste
with sweet pickles and jam.
December 13
Christmas Mail
By Ted Kooser
Cards in each mailbox,
angel, manger, star and lamb,
as the rural carrier,
driving the snowy roads,
hears from her bundles
the plaintive bleating of sheep,
the shuffle of sandals,
the clopping of camels.
At stop after stop,
she opens the little tin door
and places deep in the shadows
the shepherds and the wise men,
the donkeys lank and weary,
the cow who chews and muses.
And from her Styrofoam cup,
white as a star and perched
on the dashboard, leading her
ever into the distance
there is a hint of hazelnut,
and then a touch of myrrh.
December 14
Going to Bed
By George Bilgere
I check the locks on the front door
and the side door,
make sure the windows are closed
and the heat dialed down.
I switch off the computer,
turn off the living room lights.
I let in the cats.
Reverently, I unplug the Christmas tree,
leaving Christ and the little animals
in the dark.
The last thing I do
is step out to the backyard
for a quick look at the Milky Way.
The stars are halogen-blue.
The constellations, whose names
I have long since forgotten,
look down anonymously,
and the whole galaxy
is cartwheeling in silence through the night.
Everything seems to be okay.
December 15
Ceramic Christmas Tree
By James Crews
It’s become a ritual, the clicking on
of his grandmother’s old ceramic
Christmas tree, which we haul out
of the closet each year and set up
on the end table next to the couch.
Tiny mice in various poses, wearing
Santa hats, gripping candy canes,
peek out from branches, while a
single weak bulb beneath the tree
brings to life all the colored lights
at the tips. Each night, it glows like
remembered joy and the promise
of many joys to come—a beacon
in the living room when we flip
the switch just as dusk falls at 4pm,
mourning the shortness of the day
and wondering: can beauty be
this easy, so much color and hope
from such a small source inside?
December 16
Our Own Orion
By Laura Foley
No need to travel to Iceland for northern lights,
to cruise rough seas for glimpses of a different sky,
we just crack the door, and peer over banks
of thigh-deep snow, to taste our own
frosted slice of night. No need for red and green
streaks or solar flares, or even a lunar eclipse,
just our own Orion with his hunter’s bow,
bright stars in a moonless time, whose greater darkness
further defines his more distant place
in endless space and time, we claim by naming.
December 17
The More It Snows
By A.A. Milne
The more it
SNOWS-tiddely-pom,
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
On
Snowing.
And nobody
KNOWS-tiddely-pom,
How cold my
TOES-tiddely-pom
How cold my
TOES-tiddely-pom
Are
Growing.
December 18
Little Lights
By Laura Foley
Midwinter cold and dark days,
but the tree reaches our ceiling.
We’ve covered it with little lights,
folded paper swans, a Santa
made from popsicle spoons.
Red glitter reflects in Eleanor’s eyes
as she approaches, her small frame
reaching just the lower branches.
Packages wrapped in shiny paper
fill the spaces below, as does her voice,
her definite tones belling the room
as she tears open a present,
turns it around for us to see:
Thank you, Grandma!
I don’t know what it is!
And no less pleased than if she did.
December 19
Love Is Born
By Michael Leunig
Love is born
With a dark and troubled face.
When hope is dead
And in the most unlikely place
Love is born,
Love is always born.
December 20
The Fold
based on a Cincinnati newspaper story
By Anne Harding Woodworth
A lamb broke from the live manger scene,
bolted over the barricade
into a network of roads and left a space
of softness and memories and a place
for the goat-kid born that night.
They called the kid Joey
for Joseph, who’d waited patiently for the birth.
Mary was trying not to wrinkle her wimple
but this was movement unprecedented in the land.
in its season a flock eats, spins, utters, stutters
their ballyhoo. When their hooves need clipping
you hold them against you, their back to your knees.
They weave rugs to warm floors,
knit sweaters and mittens to meet the cold half-way.
A cop came carrying under his arm
the lost lamb from the streets, and they called her
Wonderful, wedged her in next to the sleeping Joey.
The whole contains at times a missing
and at times it overflows.
December 21
Solstice
By Rennie McQuilkin
The lights are out, the fires are cold
in Zuni Pueblo. It is time. Now
across the ice-hard wash and mesa
he comes,
chest and legs dappled red and blue,
blue beads at his wrist and neck,
redtail feathers on a spotted mask
and over his shoulder a fawn skin
filled with rattling sunflower seed.
He carries a torch,
leaves a line of fires stretching west
and reaches the people,
blesses the hearths, relights the fires,
dances with the cloud-white, nimbus-
headed, cedar-and-bow-bearing Rain
God of the North. The year begins.
December 22
Christmas Eve: Nearing Midnight in New York
By Langston Hughes
The Christmas trees are almost all sold
And the ones that are left go cheap
The children almost all over town
Have almost gone to sleep.
The skyscraper lights on Christmas Eve
Have almost all gone out
There’s very little traffic
Almost no one about.
Out town’s almost as quiet
As Bethlehem must have been
Before a sudden angel chorus
Sang PEACE ON EARTH
GOOD WILL TO MEN!
Our old Statue of Liberty
Looks down almost with a smile
As the island of Manhattan
Awaits the morning of the Child.
December 23
The Oxen
By Thomas Hardy
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
“Come; see the oxen kneel,
“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.
December 24
Christmas Bat
By Rennie McQuilkin
An hour till midnight service
and the sexton has fired up the furnace.
What a banging of pipes for Christmas!
Look, a bat abiding in the rafters
is flying low above
the manger. He tips his wings in praise
of a mite no doubt from the evergreen,
but still… Something mute, inhuman
kneels in me, waiting.
Back and forth in the nave
I hear the shuttle of wings like pages
turning to the proper carol.
December 25
Christmas
By Rennie McQuilkin
day is done. Wherever the trees
aren’t violet on a field of white
they’re white on deepening blue.
Carelessly a ribbon red as wrapping
lies along a line of hills.
The opening is done.
What’s left to give
is simple as violet on a field
of white.
Additional information
| Weight | .5 lbs |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 12 × 8 × 2 in |
