Remembrance Day, November 11th, is fast approaching. I’ve been reading my father’s poetry, and thinking of him. He died in Normandy, June 1944. His poems reveal how soldiers carry homes, families, their past, close to their hearts …
ON WHITE DUNES
‘… a solitary ring plover, 
Small and plump and coloured
– Black and white and red –
Surprising as a toy of painted wood.’
John Jarmain
between the ocean and the desert
a stray plover
from Scotland’s Moray Firth
foraged on the dunes of El Alamein
it took Father from rumbling tanks
and the smoking wrecks of jeeps
to where children played
under apple trees
To Bethlehem: ‘This little book is delightful, full of … poems on this timeless subject. … the most fun is the little prose vignettes of the common people in the Christ-child story. The slave who looks after the wise men’s camels, or the overworked maid at the inn who has to fetch water for the birth, and many more. A lovely gift for the reader on your Christmas list!’ Rosalind Adams. Available from Amazon and Kindle.
1960willowtree 