#Sundaystills The Road to silence

And with a quick snappy click, the room descended into complete and total silence.

The loss of electricity deleted the background hum of the computer, the fridge, and the boiler. This is not an unusual occurrence for life in the country, and as a rule, we don’t sweat it too much. We do own a generator now because at two days powerless one runs the risk of losing all the contents of the two freezers.

I had been sitting at the computer doing background reading for a meeting tomorrow. One about the Next of Kin Memorial Avenue inside Woodlawn Cemetery in Saskatoon. This led me to think about silence, of the immediate personal kind but also a larger permanent silence.

And although Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae did not use the word silence his poem speaks to the ultimate silence of those left behind in battlefield cemeteries.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Which lead me to think about the many battlefield cemeteries we visited in Belgium, Scotland and France. Devoid of conversations despite people being present. The bird chatter breaks the silence.

Vimy Ridge

Hugh Cairns, VC Grave

Special thanks to Terri at Second Wind Leisure for this thought-provoking prompt. And strangely enough I’m actually posting a Sundaystills on a Sunday on a family supper night. Connections rolling full speed today!

Bernie