November is the month of remembrance, starting with All Souls on November 1st when we think about those we have known and lost. My Dad’s birthday was on November 1st. My mother always considered him a lost soul.
Bonfire Night is also an act of remembrance as we commiserate – sorry – celebrate the fact that Guy Fawkes failed to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
As Remembrance Sunday approaches I thought I would share the impressions I brought back from a trip to the trenches and war graves in northern France and Belgium.
There’s an absence here. 
It pulls at the soul as if
Looking for substance.
God is forbidden,
Excluded, shut out, dismissed,
Buried beneath mud.
In the silence, no
Birds sing; only the poppy
Grows, red in the sun.
SueJEaton 