Poppies, for Remembrance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Today’s poem was written in 2004 and appeared in my 4th collection the following year; it has also appeared in an anthology, The Colour of War, Forward Press, 2011.

I have written almost as many poems about the tragedy of war as I have about the inspiring quality of love, much influenced by the powerful poems of World War I poets like Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Vera Brittain, to name but a few.

The irony cannot be lost on anyone. Given that the horrors of war have been passed on so graphically from generation to generation since, it neither prevented World War II nor this sorry world of ours remaining a battleground for various socio-cultural-religious-political forces worldwide.

Here in the UK, as Armistice Day approaches, many of us buy a poppy as a symbol of remembrance; the money raised goes to the British Legion, a charity that, for many years, has provided financial, social and emotional support to members of the British armed forces, veterans, and their dependants.

National anniversaries of remembrance rightly salute the dead, but the dead would not want those they leave behind or injured friends and colleagues who survive to be forgotten either. Charities like the British Legion  and Help for Heroes have stepped in where successive Governments much prefer not to tread.

Countless poppies, countless tears; hopes, shared by millions for a peaceful world while haunted by the growing sense of a twenty-first century no less inclined than any other to the rhetoric of peace.

  

Photo: Cenotaph war memorial, London (UK)

Created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins with setting by stage designer Tom Piper; ceramic poppies commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of World War scheduled to progressively fill the dry moat around the Tower of London until Armistice Day, November 11th, 2013.

Photo: In the war memorial Neue Wache (Berlin) the moving sculpture, 'Mother and her dead son' by the Berlin artist Kathe Kollwitz says it all...

POPPIES, FOR REMEMBRANCE 

In two world wars, and conflicts since, they died

for love of country, freedom and their own;

shells, mortars, bullets and bombs they defied

so we may reap the rewards they have sown

Let’s remember those who never came back,

(sitting comfortably, watching TV);

Somme, Dunkirk, Korea, Falklands, Iraq...

(So much for the lessons of history!)

The wounded, too, deserve our thanks and pride,

some forgotten, left but to fade away

in pain, loneliness, no one at their side

as fought with them so bravely, won the day

World in remembrance of hope, prayers and tears

for peace in its time to yet end its worst fears

[From: A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]

W-A-R, Womb-Tomb of History OR Where 'X' Marks the Spot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

For the benefit of any readers who may not realize (many young people have no idea) the ‘Tomb of the Unknown Soldier’ refers to a grave in which the unidentifiable remains of a soldier are interred. Such tombs can be found in many nations and are usually high-profile national monuments. Throughout history, many soldiers have died in wars without their remains being identified. Following the First World War, a movement arose to commemorate these soldiers with a single tomb, containing the body of one such unidentified soldier.

The idea was probably first conceived by the American poet Walt Whitman during his first hand experience in the American Civil War, where he reflects in his great prose work Specimen Days ('Fifty Hours Left Wounded on the Field') how "the Bravest Soldier crumbles in mother earth, unburied and unknown."

In 1916, various sources tell us, the Reverend David Railton, serving in the British Army as a chaplain, saw a grave marked by a rough cross, which bore the pencil-written legend 'An Unknown British Soldier'. He proposed that a similar grave should exist in Britain as a national monument. There was a public support for idea here and also in France.

The United Kingdom and France unveiled their monuments on Armistice Day, 1920; in Britain, the ‘Tomb of the Unknown Warrior’ was created at Westminster Abbey, while in France ‘La Tombe du Soldat Inconnu’ was placed in the Arc de Triomphe. The idea of a symbolic Tomb of the Unknown Soldier spread rapidly to other countries. In the United States, for example, ‘The Tomb of the Unknowns ‘(often referred to as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) is located in Arlington National Cemetery. We should also remember that not all Germans were Nazis; the Neue Wache (New Guardhouse) in Berlin has been a war memorial since 1931. In 1993, following the reunification of Germany, it was re-dedicated as the "Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny." Käthe Kollwitz's sculpture, Mother with her Dead Son, is directly under the oculus and symbolizes the suffering of civilians during World War II.

It is one of the greater tragedies of the human race that we are (very) selective about which lessons of history we choose to learn, as war scenarios and in-fighting across the world plainly illustrate. Yet, just as there will always be those so greedy for wealth and power that they will not hesitate to abuse people’s Human Rights so, too, will there always be others willing to stand up to them and fight for the freedom to live as they wish rather than have a way of life imposed upon them.

Att the going down of the sun and in the morning, we would, indeed, each and every one of us, whatever our socio-cultural-religious persuasion, do well to remember those ordinary men and women who have fallen or suffered injury in wars across the world since humankind took its first steps and learned to shout, ‘You can’t have that, it’s mine...!’

[A friend, reading over my shoulder, has just commented that this post should be published on Armistice Day. Me, I see no reason to wait until November. Remembrance is not a one-off affair.]

This poem is a kenning.

W-A-R, WOMB-TOMB OF HISTORY or WHERE 'X' MARKS THE SPOT

They called me a hero
where I fell in the heat of battle
and lay on the ground
writhing in agony alleviated only
by familiar voices
calling me back home because
it’s my turn next to buy
a round at the old village pub
on the Green

The dust of centuries
choking my lungs, can scarcely
draw breath
and my poor body pulled
in all directions...
Yet, still I can hear the hop pickers
making merry in the fields
on their annual working holiday
from poverty

They call me a hero,
even those who never knew me
and will never find me
for they cannot follow (yet) among
sights, sounds and smells
keeping a promise they made me
the day I was born,
that they’d see to it I’d suffer
no lasting harm

I live, that peace we grow and die for,
at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

[Note: This poem first appeared under the title 'Where 'X' Marks the Spot' in The Hands of Time, Poetry Today [Forward Press] 2001 and subsequently in First Person Plural by R. N. Taber Assembly Books, 2002.]