We Will Remember
Today we will remember. We will remember the thousands of animals who have given their lives in human conflicts over the years. We will remember the many hundreds of thousands of humans, whatever their race or nationality. Few people or animals choose to go to war of their own accord. Most who lose their lives are pawns in a bigger game orchestrated by the few who lead. It takes only one charismatic and misguided leader to cause devastation for many. The same is as true now as it was 100 years ago and sadly, as we dogs look on we realise that humans have learnt very little in that time.
A Poem from our Mistress
Flanders’ Fields
Life’s fleeting impossibility claws through the aftermath of the rain sodden trenches.
The tread boards sunk in the churned quagmire of yesterday,
A reminder of the unmarked graves.
Here lie the myriad believers in a struggle for tomorrow.
Sent to die by the turbid commands of authority,
Into the acrid haze of battle.
The mud, cloying and omnipresent, claiming their footsteps,
Claiming their struggle,
Claiming their torso,
Claiming their very breath.
Lungs clogged by the rich brown earth to which they return.
Yet there in Flanders fields,
A greater hand orchestrates the whole.
Poised to grow the poppy red carpet of peace above those sodden graves.
© Rosemary J Kind
And in Alfie’s Words
This is what Alfie had to say a few years ago and it’s still as true now.
When you’ve driven past those fields on Remembrance Sunday and you’ve dug in the sodden ground that makes up those fields and you’ve looked at the thousands of names listed on the memorial at Ypres, you start to understand in a very small way just what a tragic sacrifice was made and at what a price peace was brought about.
I’d just like to add a little note to send all my friends and relatives in Belgium hugs and licks from an Alfie Dog who misses his homeland.
Well that’s all from me for today. May the peace we have last a very long time
Love Aristotle
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