Remembrance Day Tribute

Flags carried in the opening military march through

Remembrance Day 
comes round again.
Drifting dry snow memories swirl around poppy laden wreaths laid at the base of the cenotaph in Milestone.

Men, some of them my uncles, seen daily in stores or repair shops in Milestone, transform into soldiers once more in

left over bits of uniforms,

navy blue berets

medals

ribbons

serious faces.

Strength and bursting energy of youth reshaped by 

Cenotaph on the grounds of the Legislature

life experience and age.

Memories scatter like dry leaves around me of little, if any, talk of war experience, save the brief story about the long painful walk across Europe in deep grey mud, or hearing the words ‘shell shock’ never explained or asked about.

The real war only known from a very great distance, knowledge and limited understanding bolstered after years of life experience caring for veterans of many wars in hospital beds far from those battle grounds.

War memory drifts and swirls around cenotaphs

in the diverse places I have lived:

on the Saskatchewan prairies,

the Texas plains and

to Vancouver Island on the West coast of Canada

Empress Hotel facing the Inner Harbour

and all regions north, south, east and west.

Today, at the corner of Belleville and Government street, civilians in rain gear or puffy down coats gathered respectfully in the chill, 

military units marched, saluted, called out to attention, senior veterans straightened fading hearts and bodies, young cadets swung vigorously to military marches,

flags flew in the cold wet wind.

At 1100 am sharp silence fell on the square for two minutes, brackets of a twenty one gun salute and an aircraft chevron flyover enclosed the hushed moment.
Only the scree of two gulls, 

rustling wind in the pines and

the spatter of tiny rain drops on umbrellas and jackets
wrinkled the silence.

“The soldier above all others prays for peace,

for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear

the deepest wounds and scars of war.”

~ Douglas MacArthur