Remembering.

"They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them."

Passers by looking at the poppy wreaths laid on Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph on Whitehall in London. I found some time today to go for a walk at lunchtime and went to see the poppies at the Cenotaph and the Garden of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey. It was a grey and misty day, which seemed to create the right atmosphere for remembering those fallen in war. In between the two, I came across the snowman star of this year's John Lewis (UK department store) Christmas ads. Apparently he's travelling around the UK and just for today was in a red phone box at the side of Parliament Square. On any other day he'd have been my blip, but I was moved more by the messages left for loved ones - by mothers who'd lost their sons, children who'd lost their fathers, by those who'd survived for their comrades who did not. It saddens me that still there's so much fighting in the world.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae