Christmas 1: Greensleeves in the Suburbs

Nothing says summer like this:
Renaissance minstrel piped through tinny speakers,
musicbox-like, rotating through sleepy street,
a call for ice-cream from a roaming van,
suburban icon, half-sinister, half-sweet.

To us in the south it seems fitting that the tune
should be used too for carols:
“What Child is This?” and another I don’t know,
“Now that the old year is fled”.
Who is the lady Greensleeves? Apocryphal stories clash with tradition;
promiscuity, Henry VIII wooing his distant Anne,
sleeves to reflect the moral state…

Into such as this, the child steps;
if today, would Mr Whippy have heralded Him,
as he lay down in our real estate?
Would summer celebrators have briefly paused
over rainbow-with-chocolate-sprinkles
to laud the newborn king?

Now that our year is nearly fled,
we lie to rest but wake instead
to a summer, blazing bright away
and nothing more to fill our stockings.
As the green grass casts us away,
let’s pray
that the child-king might be found amongst us.