While you dream, all end scene

[sovay]

So now we remember the remembrance, instead of the war itself. Perhaps we should have chosen a different memorial: poppies are the flower of the dead, but also of forgetting, and what with one myth and another they will follow their original function if we are not mindful, which is hard enough to do with the living. Every year I think it's harder. Every year it has to be done.

I feel so restless and un-anchored. We have lived in such an elemental way so long, things here don't look quite right to me somehow; or it may be the consciousness of my so limited time for freedom – so little time to do so many things bewilders me.
—Isaac Rosenberg, 21 September 1917

Comments

[cmcmck]

Such depth, as so often with Rosenberg.

'What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver -what heart aghast?'

[sovay]

Such depth, as so often with Rosenberg.

He is important to me, as he is for so many people.

[lauradi7dw]

It's not Remembrance Day here - that's in May, an artifact of the Civil War cemetery decoration day. But enough people remember to be confused, at least.
We'd like you to be more ringing-adjacent than you are. The Brits etc. are still quite observant - not all of the "performances" yesterday and today were Remembering, but most of them were
https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/list.php
The footnote on the quarter at the National Cathedral is representative of the confusion often felt in the US, I think
"in remembrance for Veterans Day"

Today I saw a short video of Viet Nam veterans marching toward the memorial in DC, and was struck by how old the marchers were - how could they be that old, when they should be just a little older than I am, and *I'm* not that old? But whatever we say about how long people have been fighting George W's wars, the US part in the Viet Nam "conflict" seemed like forever, too - by some definition from August of 1964 through at least January of 1973, and two more years if one counts time until the dramatic "fall of Saigon." 1973 was my high school graduation year, so my exact cohort didn't go, but older guys who graduated a year or two before were eligible for the draft, if not actually drafted. My age, but then again the career army father of a college acquaintance had also fought in Viet Nam, as had the father of a later co-worker, so really it was a good chunk of a generational age spread. The guys who were 21 in 1968, just as an example, would be 72 now. Not so old in some sense, but it's my impression from trips to the VA with my (WWII vet) father that a lot of the Viet Nam veterans have had a hard time, medically.

[selkie]

*hugs*
The remembering is important.

[sovay]

It's not Remembrance Day here

We don't have one ever, as I understand it—when Armistice Day was widely renamed, the Commonwealth went with Remembrance and the U.S. went with Veterans and I got hit with Kurt Vonnegut at an early age and despite being born well after the changeover always think of November 11 as Armistice Day. May is Memorial Day and I agree that the two are closely allied but distinct, like all the different Roman holidays for the dead. I was thinking of things like this tweet commemorating the anniversary of the first commemoration. It's as though the remembering shifts out another layer; it becomes even less real.

Not so old in some sense, but it's my impression from trips to the VA with my (WWII vet) father that a lot of the Viet Nam veterans have had a hard time, medically.

That is my understanding, too, and experience from within my own family. A lot of people hurt over a long time.

[sovay]

The remembering is important.

I think so.

*hugs*

[sholio]

I appreciate that most of those who serve in war have no choice about it, but at the same time absolutely hate our country's valorization of the military, and I feel as if the metamorphosis of a commemoration of the end of war, into an occasion to further valorize the act of fighting in war, says a lot about our culture as a nation, none of it good.

[sovay]

and I feel as if the metamorphosis of a commemoration of the end of war, into an occasion to further valorize the act of fighting in war, says a lot about our culture as a nation, none of it good.

Yes. It's the wrong memory.

[cmcmck]

I feel blessed to have met his old friend and champion (not to mention fellow poet) Joseph Leftwich in his old age. Connections like that are so important.

[movingfinger]

I was discussing Día de los Muertos with a friend recently and realized there is no commonly-observed holiday for remembrance and commemoration of non-military dead in the US or indeed most of Europe. Nothing like e.g. All Souls'¹ or O-Bon. There are religious observances, but they tend to be individual and not communal.

This may be one reason Día de los Muertos is starting to get traction. It will be interesting to see if ofrendas become more common, if only on a community level. So far the Pinterest side seems to be the point, for average Americans.

¹ All Souls' is observed in Catholic areas but the intensity isn't widespread, as far as I've witnessed.

[sovay]

I was discussing Día de los Muertos with a friend recently and realized there is no commonly-observed holiday for remembrance and commemoration of non-military dead in the US or indeed most of Europe.

Huh. That may be true. I know a few people who are like that about Halloween, but most of them are in it for the licensed spookiness. I happen to belong to a tradition that celebrates yahrzeits, so I am accustomed to remembering the dead without wars, but now that I think about it, I have no idea what non-Jews (or non-Catholics, since you mention All Souls') do.

[movingfinger]

All Souls' has kind of fallen out of use, AFAIK but I would be happy to be corrected. The especially devout might go to Mass, but I doubt that the average nominal Catholic gives it a thought.

Yahrzeits are individual, as I understand it, but they are more used than any other Western remembrance tradition I know of (NOTE CAVEAT THANK YOU). There are specific remembrance days (not widely observed outside of in-groups) for e.g. Holocaust dead, Armenian genocide dead, et al., but the West doesn't have the one big cemetery-visiting day where you go clean up the stones, bring flowers/offerings, and remember. It's individual and personal: the Yahrzeit is slightly more formal and understood in the community, but it's still largely individual.

Something something Protestantism?

[movingfinger]

In America particularly, the twentieth century being as it was, I think one would be hard put to find a family/individual who has known no deceased person who served in the military, so the Memorial Day thing, where the Boy Scouts go tidy cemeteries and put flags on veterans' graves and families bring flower boxes, might gravitationally occupy that space in the national psyche. But it is specifically military.

[sovay]

All Souls' has kind of fallen out of use, AFAIK but I would be happy to be corrected.

I have no idea. I know it exists in the calendar and I know a couple of people who celebrate it, but I also know the kind of people who attend Tenebrae services.

It's individual and personal: the Yahrzeit is slightly more formal and understood in the community, but it's still largely individual.

Yizkor prayers are communal; they can be said without a minyan, unlike the mourner's Kaddish, but they are meant to be recited with one. There are four opportunities during the year, of which we've just had two in Yom Kippur and Shmini Atzeret. Erev Yom Kippur is also when you light yahrzeit candles for everyone in your family, no matter how long ago they died or at what time of year. Visiting the grave, leaving stones is individual-familial as far as I know, and in my family not tied to the yahrzeit, though that is almost certainly a factor of location.

Something something Protestantism?

Yeah.

[sovay]

But it is specifically military.

Extremely so.

[brigdh]

I feel as if the metamorphosis of a commemoration of the end of war, into an occasion to further valorize the act of fighting in war

Yes. I was just thinking exactly this thought – I happened to visit Canada over the weekend, and seeing so many people wearing poppy pins struck me strongly.

[brigdh]

poppies are the flower of the dead, but also of forgetting

What an excellent – though sad – observation. Apparently in France they use the cornflower instead, but I don't know of any mythical resonances for it.

[sovay]

What an excellent – though sad – observation.

It is the kind of thing I think about!

Apparently in France they use the cornflower instead, but I don't know of any mythical resonances for it.

That's neat. Perhaps it doesn't have any, beyond the war itself.