Remembrance Sunday

It is Armistice Day today, and it is has been a very strange experience for me this year. In England on the Sunday closest to Armistice Day we have, what is commonly referred to as Remembrance Sunday. It is on this Sunday that we reflect on war, all the people that have fought in all wars and the people that still are fighting in wars, for the freedom of others. In England, we remember the soldiers that fought, by buying and wearing a red poppy. In every town square there is a memorial statue and in November the statues are covered with poppy wreaths. It really is very pretty and respectful and humbling and I really do miss it.

Here is my favourite sad poem about war.

The Box by Lascelles Abercrombie.

Once upon a time, in the land of Hush-A-Bye.
Around about the wondrous days of yore,

They came across a kind of box

Bound up with chains and locked with locks,

And labeled "Kindly do not touch: it's war."

A decree was issued round about and all with a flourish and a shout

And a gaily coloured mascot tripping lightly on before.

Don't fiddle with this deadly box, or break the chains, or pick the locks.

And please, don't ever play about with war.

The children understood, children happen to be good

And they were just as good around the time of yore.
They didn't try to pick the locks or break into that deadly box.

They never tried to play about with war.

Mommies didn't either, sisters, brothers, grannies neither

'Cause they were quiet, and sweet and pretty

In those wondrous days of yore.

Well, very much the same as now

And not the ones to blame somehow

For opening up that deadly box of war.

But someone did. Someone battered in the lid
And spilled the insides out across the floor.

A kind of bouncy, bumpy ball made up of guns and flags

And all the tears, and horror, and death that comes with war.

It bounced right out and went bashing all about,

Bumping into everything it saw. And what was sad and most unfair

Was that it didn't really seem to care

Much who it bumped, or why, or what, or for.

It bumped the children mainly. And I'll tell you this quite plainly,

It bumps them everyday and more, and more,

And leaves them dead, and burned, and dying

Thousands of them sick and crying.

'Cause when it bumps, it's really very sore.

Now there's a way to stop the ball. It isn't difficult at all.

All it takes is wisdom and I'm absolutely sure

That we can get it back into the box, and bind the chains, and lock the locks.

But no-one seems to want to save the children anymore.

Well, that's the way it all appears, 'cause its been bouncing round for years and years

In spite of all the wisdom wizzed since those wondrous days of yore

And the time they came across a box

Bound up with chains and locked with locks,

And labeled "kindly do not touch; it's war."