by Carol Dixon
Photo: Laura M Goodsell Unsplash
Our most solemn remembering takes place on 11 November – Remembrance Day (known as Veterans’ Day in some places) and the sombre tone of poems written by those involved in war and by those left to mourn are heart wrenching.
POEM: Anthem for Doomed Youth – Wilfred Owen
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
[Written September-October 1917. Wilfred Owen was killed at Ors, near the French Belgian border, on 4 November 1918, aged 25.]
Song: Where have all the flowers gone? https://youtu.be/-lJw0Y2BJfI?feature=shared
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them,
every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
……….
Here’s to the heroes
Who change our lives
Thanks to the heroes
Freedom survives
Here’s to the heroes
Who never rest
They are the chosen
We are the blessed
Here’s to the heroes
Who aim so high
Here’s to the heroes
Who do or die
Here’s to the heroes
Who aim so high
Here’s to the heroes
Who do or die
Here’s to the heroes
Who do or die
Remembrance Day 2000
She stands in the cold
Her black cloth coat
Suits the occasion
But fails to keep her warm
Despite the gleam of silver
At her breast.*
Her thoughts circle round:
“Why did we have another war?
Didn’t we lose enough men already?
Why did my sons have to die?
O God, keep me upright.
Help me not to scream
Out their names.
“What will we have for dinner tonight?
What would Joey and Bill have wanted?
It’s so hard to have faith…
It’s so hard to have hope…
Why did my sons have to die?
Jesus, you comforted your mother
As she stood and watched you die.
If I pray hard enough
Will you bring comfort to me?
“If that preacher says ‘Noble Sacrifice’
One more time I’ll scream…
I’ll scream out their names
So hard the dead will hear me.
Only this time, I’ll scream out loud
Instead of in my heart.”
But she doesn’t scream…
She stands beside the Honour Guard
Who are older than her sons
Were when they died.
The people nearby watch her,
Wondering how she can stand
So still, so calm,
Knowing she lost two boys,
Thinking she has lost her grief
After all these years
When to her it might
Have been today. © Clare Stewart November 2000
Photo: mwangi gatheca Unsplash
* “Gleam of silver.” Clare Stewart, who is a Canadian, explains: “Every year, a Silver Cross mother is invited to lay a wreath on Remembrance Day at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on behalf of all mothers. The Memorial Cross is depicted in bronze with the three different cyphers, at three of the four corners of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, unveiled in May 2000. There is also a large replica of the Memorial Cross hanging above the door of the Memorial Chamber in the Peace Tower of the Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings, where the Books of Remembrance are kept.” Clare Stewarts also hosts a Remembrance Art Show on the web every November for the entire month. Here is the link. http://www.cscomps.on.ca Click on Clare Stewart and follow the links.
And finally, Dylan Thomas’s defiant poem of hope…..
AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.
PRAYERS (from Roots worship)
God of justice and peace,
we pray for those who have been injured
or disabled through war.
For those who have lost homes
and security through conflict;
for those who have lost loved relatives in wars;
for those who face danger and take risks for peace;
for all those, especially children,
caught up in current conflicts;
for refugees and all those in need of aid and other help.
God of encouragement
and Saviour of the despairing,
comfort those who remember past sacrifices
and guide us in building
a just and peaceful community for all.
As one family, we reflect today
on the horrors of the past that continue
to haunt humanity and darken our world.
Lord, where pain still overwhelms, bring healing.
Where hearts are still breaking, bring comfort.
Where peoples are still oppressed, bring liberation.
Where communities are still victimised, bring justice.
Where children are still brutalised, bring compassion.
Where lives are still crushed, bring hope.
Where evil is perpetrated, bring repentance.
Where war still devastates, bring peace.
But most of all, wherever a single voice
cries out in the darkness, bring us to one another,
in the name of the love you bear
in your heart for all people, all nations and all creation.
We pray in silence now for those people and places we know to be in need of your healing love ……….
A Prayer of Brother Lawrence: O God, here we are all devoted to you, make us according to your heart; In Christ make us one, that the world may believe; mould us according to your heart.
The hymn most associated with Remembrance Sunday, set to the haunting tune St Anne is ‘O God our help in ages past’ by Isaac Watts (who died in Nov 1748. Like the psalm it is based on – Psalm 90 – the words are reassuring and uplifting. I like singing it to the more upbeat tune University which is sometimes sung to ‘The God of love my shepherd is’
HYMN o God our help in ages past https://youtu.be/xMBv6onCT5M?feature=shared (words below)
O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast,
and our eternal home:
Under the shadow of thy throne,
thy saints have dwelt secure;
sufficient is thine arm alone,
and our defence is sure.
Before the hills in order stood,
or earth received her frame,
from everlasting thou art God,
to endless years the same.
A thousand ages in thy sight
are like an evening gone;
short as the watch that ends the night
before the rising sun.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
bears all its sons away;
they fly, forgotten, as a dream
dies at the opening day.
O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
be thou our guide while troubles last,
and our eternal home! (Isaac Watts)
Blessing: [by Pope John Paul II] Let us remember the past with gratitude, live the present with enthusiasm, and look forward to the future with confidence.