In memoriam

Above us…for dVerse

Grace at dVerse challenges us “to write from the perspective of the dead man (or woman).” Here’s my poem. My photo is, I admit, from WWII, but it’s closely related and WWII figures into my poem, albeit obliquely.

Above us

“In Flanders field the poppies blow…”

And grow, too
            (as well they should
            given our bones and flesh and blood 
gone to fertilizer)

gone to grow
          not peace 
          but yet more war
another layer of human fertilizer
    above us

When will they ever learn?

No doubt 
      never
“Man” being what he is

But there are things worth fighting for
and so we gave our all
      (and cheered those left behind
       to live and grow 
   above us)

Driving through the French countryside

One of the joys of my trip has been our daily drives through the countryside near (and a bit farther away) from my s-i-l’s house.  Here’s a sampling of photos from the trip we took the same day we saw the travail.  The roof of this church’s steeple show the classic colorful Burgundian tile.  Even the smallest villages often have a large church.  I imagine it was a place where people who were often far from neighbors could get together at least once a week.

One of the things I like about France is that they remember history.  Everywhere you go, you see monuments to the soldiers killed in WWI and WWII.  Sometimes there are only one or two names, sometimes many; sometimes the surnames are, sadly, all from the same family.  These are men killed by Germans in WWI.