The silence of remembrance

It's here ... National Poetry Day 2014, is today ;-)

... and this year's theme is; "Remember".

The picture here is an original Nicholas Barnham, that I've got hanging at my work-office ... it's a watercolour of the old churchyard at Lund, on Unst, Shetland; with which Barnham has had a long assocation.

And so --- here are a few lines, with the annual theme in mind:


Remember

Still
today I remember
in the quiet
but amidst the noise
too, nothing drowns
out the silence
of emotion.

Calm
now, as the day
begins anew
each moment special
every breath cherished
and yet
the silence.

On days
it can deafen
all else swept
aside, as memory
seeps through every
pore, each detail
clear, warm.

Not
for me the choice
to forget, but to
remember
for what else
can one do, before
the silence.

------