The Deathly Prospect of War

A poem about the Christmas truce, World War One.

Christmas Eve night,
Men lying awake,
Asleep are only the drunken rats and the dead,
They are tired and weak
Angry but lonely,
No one talks until the youngest boy sings.

Joy, peace,
Is what we sing about,
The only other option is the living prospect of death,
In the shadows it hides,
Growing ever closer,
Like a cloud on the whistling wind.

fröhlich, glücklich,
The Germans are singing,
They stop shooting and sad voices fill the air,
We cry with grief,
Our dead are lost,
Not like the letters enclosed in our hearts.

Jim, the boy,
Stands up with his hands up,
We are silent in prayer, kneeling and listening,
They do not shoot,
All we hear is muttering,
Like death walking among us, making the fatal decision.

Otto, a German general
Stands up, serious
Hands in the air, and a purposeful stare
Infinite quiet
Silence ever more,
Could this be the truce of Christmas?

Willkomen, welcome,
Answering smiles,
We stand also as the German climb over
The land,
Bleak as ever,
Holds a wondering thought deep in our minds.

Could it? Would it?
Could it be true?
Until now it never seemed that the fighting would stop,
The endless death
The darkening nights
Failure of our country, government stupidity.

Suddenly, wondrously,
The troops are all here,
Suddenly not soldiers any more but friends,
Friends,
Fellow beings,
However destined to kill, friends no more.

Impossibly, in a dream,
Our captains are chosen,
And a game unlike any game that is played before now starts,
Running,
Defending,
Shooting, but not with guns.

We talk, in groups,
Exchange stories of terror,
Family and friends back at home we are missing,
The tears,
Some of joy,
Some of sadness and grief, but some of hope.

Then, it finishes,
It changed so rapidly
We walk back to the ditches of mud and blood,
We exchange glances,
Nothing more is said,
We cry ourselves to sleep and reflect on the days we loved,