Seasons in The Somme - Part XIV
WWI's Battle of The Somme began at 0728 on July 1, 1916. Today's journey included commemoration events at The Lochnagar Crater, The Thiepval Memorial, and The Ulster Tower Memorial.
The sun-caressed vibe of a heart so far away from The Somme carried this day for me, this mournful day of three commemoration events honoring the dead, the wounded, the survivors, and their ancestors. There were approximately 650,000 German, 420,000 British, and 195,000 French casualties in a five-month perilous campaign of trench warfare and suicidal infantry charges that has evolved to become an eerily—and consistently—forgotten metaphor for futile and indiscriminate slaughter.
Bagpipes stirred our souls as the colours were trooped and poems were read in three languages. A lark-voiced woman named Emma sang anthems and hymnals, our friends Victor (Ulster) and Martin (Great Britain) regaled us with war stories; I have been traversing these combat sites for months and only today realized the severe advantage of the high ground for the Hun.
Amidst the shared solemnities were good cheer and laughter, not so much as nervous responses to past traumas nearby but as tender reminders that, long past the point when the massacres stopped, human beings can care for one another and connect with emotions in any location, at any point in history.
This resiliency is contorted, however, by the fact that—time and time again—we have further opportunities when it must be displayed as a necessary reaction to the atrocities of war.
The lesson? When you find the person you love most, love hard and unabashedly in the face of even the most illogical and impossible of circumstances. Over the parapet you must go, friend! Write the poem, the book, or the song in that person’s honor. You have this life to love, that is certain. We must be capable of understanding that certitude, at least, and acting accordingly.
The poppies grow between the crosses in France just as they do in Flanders Fields: if we are to truly honor a battle’s dead on this day—and similar days—with our pageantry and reverence, we must not impugn the memories of the brave fallen by failing to allow our hearts to be brave as well.
Men and women deeply in love do not start world wars.
Ulster Memorial Tower: 1430 Hours
Anthem for Doomed Youth
By Wilfred Edward Salter 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 good-byes.
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.
