Yesterday I joined thousands of people jostling London's busy streets on the balmiest of late October days. Yet is was something other than the unprecedented weather that was drawing the crowds. Out of the turrets of the infamous Tower of London, and spilling out into the moat, were tens of thousands of ceramic poppies. Their purpose to remind us of the magnitude of blood shed, the colossal loss of life during WW1. It serves it's purpose well. The sheer breadth of the red moat is breathtakingly vast. Each one representing a life, each a family torn and irrevocably scarred. At first the combination of the unexpected throwback to summer heat and the sheer volume of people robs me of the depth of feeling I want to feel on encountering this emotive work of art. I am overwhelmed by numbers but I am still in search of the poetic significance of the experience. Then, as dusk falls, it finally comes. The numbers have finally dwindled and my view is un-obscured. In the failing light the poppies look crimson and slick, like a vast tide of blood. In the cooling breeze I shudder at the idea of this grotesque loss of life. Still, the desire to remember, to commemorate, is the overwhelming feeling and the poppies do it well. The experience led me to write a poem this morning:
A river red, slick in the half-moon's light
Like the flow of blood through the brimming dusk
Overlooked by fortress, symbol of strength
Yet all below were rendered weak and fell
Each one the crimson reminder of a life
A tide of men history swept away
Each of special import to someone else
This sobering river could burst its banks
Red moat, a reminder to us all
War never wins though victories sometimes come
Red, slick, a wide and scarlet scar
Stand, silent, still, remember and then vow 'no more'
