There was a new episode
a couple of weeks ago
on the History Extra podcast,
right in time for Christmas.
How lovely it was
that on that holy day
over a century ago
the boys who’d been sent off
first to--and then as--
target practice
could marmot their steel pans
over the frozen lips of the graves
conveniently predug for them
and wave. They exchanged
beer and plum pudding
cigarettes and stories
from when they’d studied abroad
in each other’s homes.
Famously, they kicked
Chelsea’s supply of practice balls
across the craters.
How lovely that enemies could
come out and see each other
for who they really were
before getting back to the butchery.
The guest breathed about finding
“some beauty or hope in a conflict
that was obviously otherwise
very overwhelmingly tragic”
Obviously.
It showed that the soldiers were
“still human and still reasonable”
That about sums it up.
Who else but humanity
could conceive such a scheme?
What else but reason
could have gotten them
into this mess in the first place?
What better than the flesh
of one’s new friends to tear
apart with little bits of hot metal?
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