Are there Poppy Blooms in France and Flanders?

| March 31, 2020

I wonder… Each night I walk. A steady jaunt through the neighbourhood, choosing to walk when fewer people are about…there is less risk that way. As I walk the road the 7 PM salute to our first responders builds. I watch as one curious robin hops across a lawn, his ear openings wizened to these […]

Kin and Kindling

| September 23, 2018

…each day It’s about loss…a familiar theme to the tracks of war…along the fields, the woods, the towns. Too many memorials…nearly one per town…too many headstones…row on row… too many lives…so many /so few memories. Rust, blood and petals. Repeatedly I remind myself that my visits to this peace were once the chaos of another’s […]

The 100ths are Soon upon Us

| July 25, 2014

Searching for the Great War 100 Years Later “Some wars name themselves…This is the Great War. It names itself.” Maclean’s Magazine, October 1914, p. 53 “Every intelligent person in the world knew that disaster was impending and knew no way to avoid it.” H.G. Wells (Writer) “…an old world of swords, lances and bugles would […]

Each field a farm and a battlefield

| December 30, 2011

Reflecting Upon War Horse The plow cuts its way into the ground, and turns the earth over to one side heaping the rich soil atop the furrow’s parapet. As Albert urges Joey through this field of stone, once again I turn myself towards the ploughed fields of France and Flanders, and to the harvest. Albert […]