Aside from the palindrome involved in such a date (a palindrome being a word or number that contains the same characters forwards and backwards) to me today is, as ever, an important day to remember those who have lost their lives in conflict. So shortly before 11am I shall be sitting in quiet reflection. Well as quiet as a 3 year old will let me.
I can't say I am a terribly big lover of poetry, I am afraid my unsophisticated intellect finds a great deal of it rather pretentious. I do however love the poetry of Wilfred Owen, one of the best war poets who was sadly killed in action a week before the Armistice came into effect.
I first heard this poem in an English lesson at secondary school and it stayed with me ever since.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime. -
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
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.
It is a stark re-telling of what life was like in the trenches of WWI, the horror, the fear, the sheer exhaustion and the fact that there is precious little glory in going to war.
So I will sit at 11am, wearing my British Legion red poppy, with pride but also some hope that we as a species can find a better way to resolve our differences.
Is that a cliche? A vain hope? Most likely but what's to be gained from being a cynic 24/7.
