Yuletide

I was raised in a forest of Christianity,
weaned from a wolf of God.
Had I known a heath: been a heathen.
An olive grove: a luminous paganus.
Who cares who hijacked whose holy days,
in dark Decembers I know candles and souls.
There was no snow in Bethlehem.
There was far more blood in the firelit hills.
Give me this tempered concoction of belief,
smelling of pine, warm as fleece.
I wear it like an animal skin, heavy with horns.
I pray for a birth from the biting cold.
Where science shrugs to foist human dreaming
up against the icy rote
I will meditate, crown and thorn
buried in virginity, beloved by both.