‘Do you want some green for Christmas?’,
asks a tired man set up
beside an alley’s dim, with sawn-off
fir saplings leant against the wall.
He hopes, no doubt to get them sold
by evening’s end. But sorrow rises
within you for those trees — no matter
how rare is green in northern winters,
no matter how deep the human ache —
a sacrifice at custom’s altar.
This is the second poem about this street in the suite Winter Solstice in Stockholm.
Read other poems about Stockholm here.