Will Only Exist ...
Nov 11 2014


No one remembers, anymore.
Because the last veteran
recently died,
a man weary with life
who had travelled through time,
marooned
in the wrong century.
So from now on, when we pause
on the 11th hour
                           of the 11th day
                                                     of the 11th month
the Great War will only exist
in history books.

In the printed word.
In news reels, and photogravures,
their grainy black and white
distancing us
from an unknowably alien world.

On granite walls
where names are formally carved.
In unknown soldier, and heroic charge
cast in solid bronze.
Which I'm told will stand
for tens of thousands of years,
perhaps the last man-made object
to survive.
A mysterious artifact
of a species long extinct,
a living planet
left in peace.

In audacious acts
of imagination.
Which can never be as bad
as that war's industrial killing.
As fetid trenches, and random death,
as blood and mud
and meaninglessness.
As bloated horses, put to rest
in the charnel mess
of no-man's land.

South of the border
the 11th is known as Veterans' Day.
When bewildered children
watch old men parade,
thinking boney hands, and rheumy eyes
were always that way,
uniformed men
bodies bent, but heads held high.
As if only veterans were concerned with war.
Not long-suffering wives
or workers, left behind.
Not their slaughtered brethren
or damaged descendants
or the children never born.

But here, on November 11, we all remember.
Not only to honour the past
but as a bulwark against forgetfulness.
As a cautionary tale
for the next great patriotic campaign.
As an admonition for peace
to be more than the absence of war.

Anyway, the ranks of the veterans are growing
despite our collective abhorrence,
preferring to talk
but willing to fight.
How shocking
that instead of stooped and grey
these veterans are young, and straight.

But who still have the same
thousand mile stare.
That faraway look
a little anguished, a little off.
Lost in remembrance.
Or perhaps, trying hard not. 

The last few years, I've missed writing my "annual" Remembrance Day poem. I think because it's all been said; and because it's easy to fall into platitude and cliché. And perhaps I feel unworthy to write, having sacrificed nothing, and having never really known war.

Nevertheless, it all needs to be said over and over again. Especially because some people mistake the meaning of November 11: that it's not to glorify war, but to soberly reflect upon it; that it's not an act of mindless patriotism, but an expression of gratitude to those who have served; and that it's not only about war, but about the peace it was supposed to have won.

I suspect I'm wrong, but I somehow have the impression Remembrance Day is more venerated in Canada than Veterans' Day, its counterpart in the US. Either way, I can't help paying attention to language. And "Remembrance" seems more inclusive and universal; while a day to honour veterans seems limited, like a dutiful gesture to a select group. So -- as usual! -- it was language that gave me one way into the poem.

The other was that the First World War is no longer in the realm of personal recollection and living history. I heard a commentator say something to the effect that the war now only exists in the dry pages of history books; and it seems to me it wasn't that long ago the last veteran died. So something that already seems so distant from our lives has become even more distant. (Although, to be fair, some thoughtful film-makers have curated first person "remembrance projects", in which veterans are recorded telling their unmediated stories.)

Of course, November 11 is not only about the Great War. It also commemorates, WWII, Korea, and Afghanistan, as well all of our peace-keeping operations and armed interventions, from Cyprus to Kosovo to Libya. But the tradition began in the armistice that ended WWI. And it was not only the first "modern" war -- with its industrial killing and technological one-upmanship -- but a war of unparalleled carnage and suffering: almost as much civilian as soldier. So it stands out, like an icon of the worst of war.

This isn't the first time I've used the image of the dead horse. I find it powerfully compelling. I think because it's so representative of such an utterly different time, when horses were instruments of war. And because the death of an animal is so touching, especially an innocent conscripted into our senseless killing: I picture a dutiful blinkered draught horse in its death throes, dying alone. And also because the bloated carcass festering in the blood and mud of no-man's land is so evocative of trench warfare: of the prolonged suffering of static fronts, of battles that lasted for months.

The notion of remembrance is also ironic. Because it is remembering that is the basis of post traumatic stress disorder. Before I sat down to write, I had just finished reading a feature article by Sarah Hampson (in this weekend's Globe and Mail) about the history of "shell shock", so perhaps this influenced the direction the poem eventually took. And where it ends: in the irony of trying to forget, while still honouring memory. I also like the way this book-ends the opening line: "No one remembers, anymore."

Inevitably, my usual misanthropy and nihilism wormed their way in. I just couldn't resist: " ...A mysterious artifact/ of a species that went extinct,/ on a living planet/ left in peace. ..."