11/11/2006

remembrance day

here in ghana i find that old wars are recalled with the same strange mix of nostalgia, pride and horror as they are in canada, except these wars weren’t fought an ocean away, but instead right here. being so near the battlegrounds, and their repercussions, puts a new spin on yet another canadian holiday (no one gave me candy on halloween).

on top of that i just finished reading Slaughterhouse 5 (as part of my “read all those books you really should have read ages ago” campaign), which contains, for me, one of the most powerful anti-war messages i’ve ever encountered. in other words, i’m feeling the holiday more than most years.

along those lines, here are two poems by Carl Sandburg, written during WWI:

Murmurings in a Field Hospital
Salvage

1 comment:

Colin Stewart said...

I finished Slaughterhouse 5 just a few months ago myself.

... so it goes ...