Christmas Poem, 1990
by Kathleen Raine (1908-2003)

Dear friends, whose letters alight like birds in my mornings,
Had we been together in some happy remembered place
We would have lived and told
The stories and the news, the long deep conversations
In rooms and gardens where we might have been
With an old friend too long unseen,
Or one too briefly known.
Many, many the unsaid words, the unparticipated joys,
The unexpressed affection, unshared laughter, and yet
In the unrecorded to and fro of thought
Are we not often together, the unspoken
Traveling between us in the invisible ways?
The words we write only the signature
Of boundless life, that makes us one
With those we know and love, and the unloved unknown.