The Shepherd’s Story
Snow.
Just as it was growing dark – snow.
Soft flakes fell
White and glossy
Thick as swans’ feathers
Slowly, slowly,
Until the world was put to bed
Under this white quilt
Slowly slowly drifting
Into sleep…
Then. In that silence
The sky was suddenly alive
With angels bright as fire
Their wings burning with such golden light
Their songs like thunder and like ice,
Like bells and like the deep and sonorous sea.
Their message stranger
Than any other I have ever heard.
‘God is born,’ they said.
‘The God who spoke and shaped the world
The stars, the universes
And the soft black deeps of space.
Is born.’
There on that hillside
In that snow
I heard them say it.
Then just as quickly they were gone
The sky was dark again
No echo lingered
Nothing
But the white white snow
The secret white white snow
Nothing has ever been a greater mystery
Than that night.
With angels. Snow.
A million different kinds of light
I knew then that the world is not an ordinary place
When heaven shone from one small baby’s face.
Jan Dean
Christmas Baubles
Baubles
fragile, fire-bright
hanging, hovering, quivering
reflectors of tiny, glinting tints
tree treasures
Kate Williams
Chris-mas
Please try to remember, whatever your age,
That Christmas is spelt with a T
If you try to have Christmas without it
There’ll be gif-s placed under a -ree
For dinner, you’ll have to eat -urkey
With s-uffing and maybe some sprou-s
And there won’t be much glitter or sparkle
If it’s -insel you’ve hung in your house
And when San-a Claus visits at midnigh-
He’ll find it most dreadfully shocking
If, instead of his usual cookies and milk,
He’s met with a right Chris-mas s-ocking!
John H. Rice
A Big Surprise
For my presents, I said I’d like
computer games,
a mountain bike,
an electric train
or a model plane
but most of all
I’d like a bike.
I opened my presents
and what did I find there?
A hand knitted hat
and a squeaky bear,
more underpants from my aunts
and socks (grey, one pair).
I said ‘thank you’ nicely,
I tried to smile
but what was I thinking
all the while?
I was thinking
I wanted computer games,
a mountain bike,
an electric train
or a model plane
but most of all
I’d have liked
a bike.
“There’s just one last thing
to unwrap,” they said.
“It’s a big surprise
we’ve kept it in the shed.
It’s special, it comes with love
from the lot of us…
Now I’m the only kid in school
with my own hippopotamus.
Michaela Morgan
The Way
Some snow knows
just where to go
drops straight from sky
to be as one
with other snow
some snow floats
like feathers, lifts
with air and drifts
no rush to get
from high to low
but each and
every downy flake
in silent flight
each one unique
yet like in white
can find its way
to gently change
transform with light
by simply settling
to unite
Liz Brownlee
Children's Poetry Summit 
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