Today 11 November 2024 is Armistice Day, 106 years since the guns fell silent. Now there are different guns. Remembrance can be achieved without parades, in the solitude of open fields or at a simple local park. It’s Day 708 of the Daily Poems, as your Editor walks abroad in the morning sun.
Armistice Day
the playing field which once
was farmer’s land
now sparkles brightly
in the low morning sun
its cropped grass glitters
in sharp light
glint of dewdrops
scattered across the lea
such myriad points of light
seem dewdrops but
are silken strands of gossamer
a million glistening threads
the masterwork of tiny spiders
so many multitudes
it straddles the meadow
from edge to edge
in this hallowed field
its gossamer threads stretch
as across the fields of Europe
the rows of war graves stretch
silken threads that glint
in one eternal flame
in shining commemoration
of the “glorious” dead
Peter Ualrig Kennedy