What gift? - a brief apology to my friends

A poem written to accompany my inadequate Christmas presents to my friends. 

I longed to give you gifts that spoke the tumbling darkness
and the still beyond.
I longed to give you gifts that said
"The best things in the world have happened,
  new-made, in the sharing of our dreams."
I longed to give you gifts that said,
"We have brought in the tides together.
  With each word offered we have swept the beaches
  sculpted sand,
  and washed up flotsam,
  jetsam,
  and the drowning sailors."

But, though I did my best,
the shops, filled with dream-hungry people,
shouted empty platitudes,
and come what may,
a foil-wrapped parcel is a clumsy substitute
for heartbeats and a hand's touch.

So, without the words we still must wait
while this expectant world enwombs its God
and moulds his body in the pulsing darkness
wrapping white bones with the stretched flesh of our cares.
And still we wait,
while he swims through the salt sea
learning length of leg and reach of flailing arm.
And still we wait.

And after all this...what then shall we find?
What gift deliver?
What new child, wet, wriggling, bear in blood and tears,
when shoppers all have wrapped their dreams in sleep,
and God, for you, into my cobweb net  of hopes
himself, at last, is born?


Dec 89