Remembrance Day is the only thing that can make our grey bleak November weather seem exactly right. The sound of the distant pipes; the few old men who still march to the cenotaph in berets and medals; the young cadets standing with heads bowed and hands crossed on rifles at each corner of the square…
And more than anything, what really catches me in the back of the throat, every year the same, is the sudden deep booming sound of the cannons’ salute — those big guns echoing down the years and down the river valley, from village to village, each small community with its own memorial cairn, its own group of silent observers to wipe away a windstruck tear, and its own list of long-ago farmboys’ names to be read aloud on 11 November.
But like the brave red poppies of Flanders fields and Remembrance wreaths, those bright red sparks against the grey of rainclouds and gravestones, there’s something indomitably bright in the human spirit. And as long as we can see those poppies bud and bloom — in the fields of Normandy, or in fields of hope and imagination — surely, all is not lost.
Photo: amandabhslater
