Remembrance Day 2016
part one
LAST POST
this morning the November sun
was warm enough that I could sit
outside
on the patio
in the lee of the house
and look out to sea
until the chill returned
and drove me in
to hear the ceremony of remembrance
I have an aunt named Beaumont Hamel
named for one of the slaughters of 1916
born just as the news reached home
to Pilley's Island
that all their sons were dead
all those who remember that
are dead
but Aunt Beauie still lives
in Ontario, far from Newfoundland
a century after the trauma
into which she was born
today the last post sounds
from the Grand Parade in Halifax
and reaches us on the CBC
repeater station in Sheet Harbour
during the silence that follows
I look at the portrait I drew of my father
in 1972
ten years before his death
sitting in the ruin of his beauty
staring into space
thirty years before
his own father had survived
the U-boat torpedo
that sank the Caribou
ferry to Port-aux-Basques
he returned to Glace Bay speaking
an older language
of the outports
that his children couldn't understand
and then
my father grieved a brother's death
beloved Malcolm shot down
over Dortmund in 1943
the year my father enlisted and
was sent to Ottawa to be the subject
of mustard gas experiments
the year he broke down
went absent without leave
and was discharged
as mentally unfit
he limped home
to the coal mines of Cape Breton
and the judgement of his neighbours
lost on that sea of calamity
he drifted blind
until my mother lifted him ashore
the small island
of their wounded love
where I was born
in silence now
I sit
in the house she built and left for me
an inheritance paid
at the cost
of so much suffering
and of
so
many
deaths
part two
LAST TRUMP
those of us with houses by the sea
in the decades of plenty
that followed the Holocaust
could forget
the reasons for peace
and the price paid
for some measure of civility
until now
that the alarm has sounded
that we can only hope
is not
the final trump
the brown shirts
in their stars and stripes
have begun
abusing Muslims in the street
soon the deportations
and the murders
will begin
we have a choice
to lie low
to retreat
into what's left of our comfort
to adapt to and
accommodate
the evil
or to resist
to put at risk
our privilege
our very lives
to take the chance of losing now
all that will be lost in any case
if we don't take a stand
this is not a test
that we can sit out in our apartments
this is a test of all we are
despair is a luxury
that we cannot afford
hope is not a comfort but
a civic duty
it does not shelter us
but calls us out
into the storm
part one
LAST POST
this morning the November sun
was warm enough that I could sit
outside
on the patio
in the lee of the house
and look out to sea
until the chill returned
and drove me in
to hear the ceremony of remembrance
I have an aunt named Beaumont Hamel
named for one of the slaughters of 1916
born just as the news reached home
to Pilley's Island
that all their sons were dead
all those who remember that
are dead
but Aunt Beauie still lives
in Ontario, far from Newfoundland
a century after the trauma
into which she was born
today the last post sounds
from the Grand Parade in Halifax
and reaches us on the CBC
repeater station in Sheet Harbour
during the silence that follows
I look at the portrait I drew of my father
in 1972
ten years before his death
sitting in the ruin of his beauty
staring into space
thirty years before
his own father had survived
the U-boat torpedo
that sank the Caribou
ferry to Port-aux-Basques
he returned to Glace Bay speaking
an older language
of the outports
that his children couldn't understand
and then
my father grieved a brother's death
beloved Malcolm shot down
over Dortmund in 1943
the year my father enlisted and
was sent to Ottawa to be the subject
of mustard gas experiments
the year he broke down
went absent without leave
and was discharged
as mentally unfit
he limped home
to the coal mines of Cape Breton
and the judgement of his neighbours
lost on that sea of calamity
he drifted blind
until my mother lifted him ashore
the small island
of their wounded love
where I was born
in silence now
I sit
in the house she built and left for me
an inheritance paid
at the cost
of so much suffering
and of
so
many
deaths
part two
LAST TRUMP
those of us with houses by the sea
in the decades of plenty
that followed the Holocaust
could forget
the reasons for peace
and the price paid
for some measure of civility
until now
that the alarm has sounded
that we can only hope
is not
the final trump
the brown shirts
in their stars and stripes
have begun
abusing Muslims in the street
soon the deportations
and the murders
will begin
we have a choice
to lie low
to retreat
into what's left of our comfort
to adapt to and
accommodate
the evil
or to resist
to put at risk
our privilege
our very lives
to take the chance of losing now
all that will be lost in any case
if we don't take a stand
this is not a test
that we can sit out in our apartments
this is a test of all we are
despair is a luxury
that we cannot afford
hope is not a comfort but
a civic duty
it does not shelter us
but calls us out
into the storm