Epiphany by Oonah Joslin finds light in the act of dismantling festivity. The poem begins with the stripping away of Christmas tinsel, baubles, pastel lights boxed away, yet what might seem like an ending becomes a revelation. Out of discarded brightness rises a new clarity: the natural world resumes its rhythm, trees reclaim their greenery, and birds announce the shift toward spring. It is a meditation on renewal, showing how what is put away in one season gives way to the promise of another.

Christmas Magazine Archive 2015

I stripped it
shoved its tinsel
in a black bin bag
dropped the baubles
on top
instantly made
the blackness inside bright.

Its pastel lights housed
in their original box
cheerless now
in this new year light
makes mockery
of festivity
re-establishing mundanely
trees
to their proper place as garden greenery.

Birds carol
the manifestation of
Spring.