11.11.11 on Friday, and the day that this year seems to hold even greater significance with those numbers, and after our recent Edward Thomas reading, making it also the perfect moment to say the Christmas word a bit early I know, but to show you Carol Ann Duffy's seasonal offering.
And it is quietly wonder-ful.
The Christmas Truce, and most of you will know what follows.
Christmas Eve in the trenches of France,
the guns were quiet.
The dead lay still in No Man's Land -
Freddie, Franz, Friedrich, Frank...
The moon, like a medal, hung in the clear, cold sky.
The Poet Laureate's account of the moment that 'peace found a place in No Man's Land' in World War One. The firing stopped, the carols began and the men played football.
The verse is measured and so so clever, all that we have come to expect from Carol Ann Duffy, and this little book, measuring just five inches square, beautifully illustrated by David Roberts. A must-have to add to the Carol Ann Duffy Christmas Collection.
So Christmas dawned, wrapped in mist,
to open itself
and offer the day like a gift...
And talking of gifts, scroll down..
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