As some of you may know, I am a poet and a writer. But more than that, I am a reader. For years, I read poets and marveled at what they could do with their minds. With a few well-chosen words they can capture a feeling, or moment, and seem to suspend it in time.
Not everyone likes poetry - some seem to think it is ponderous, and some of it is but most of it is extraordinarily accessible. The two pieces I am sharing with you today, this Veteran's Day, are written by people who lived during World War I but they are no less accessible and relevant today.
To the veterans among us: Thank you, for all you've done. Whatever my personal feelings are about war, that bears no reflection on your brave service, your selflessness and your courage.
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)
In April 2009 I was in London. As part of our trip, we went to Westminster Abbey, saw their war memorial, decorated with a wreath of poppies. Today is also UK's Remembrance Day, though they do not celebrate it with a day off from work, but rather a moment of silence. Theirs was held at 11:00am their time, approximately 2 and 1/2 hours ago.
The photo is mine, taken outside the Abbey. It was very moving to experience this in person, to be reminded of what has been given or lost to ensure freedom for the rest of us.
In response to the poem In Flanders Fields, Moina Michael wrote the following piece in 1918:
We Shall Keep The Faith
Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.
We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.
And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.
I wish we had learned the lessons wrought at Flanders Fields, but we have since had World War II, Korea, Vietnam, The Gulf War and now both Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Perhaps one day? I hope.
My grandfather served in WWII, in China, Burma and India. So, Grandpa, thank you for your service. My Uncle Bobby served in Vietnam and came back someone completely different than the young man who left. Thank you, Uncle Bobby, for your sacrifice. However you came back, I'm glad that you did.
If you are interested in war poetry, there are many resources on the web. Poets like Wilfred Owen used it as a cathartic means of coping with what they'd seen, and how war made them feel. Poems, like Dulce et Decorum Est (one of my favorites), were written while Owen was in hospital recovering from shell shock.
Here's the last bit:
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
The last bit is controversial to some. It's direct translation?
The title and the Latin exhortation of the final two lines are drawn from a poem of Horace (Odes, Ode III.2.13):[3]
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:
mors et fugacem persequitur virum
nec parcit inbellis iuventae
poplitibus timidove tergo.
"How sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country:
Death pursues the man who flees,
spares not the hamstrings or cowardly backs
Of battle-shy youths."
Whatever your beliefs about war, its impact cannot be denied or shied away from. Thank goodness we no longer have a President who does this.
I, for one, shall do my level best, to 'keep the faith'. Wishing you all thoughtful Veterans Day.