‽istis reclaims ‘lest we forget’ (weekending November 14th 2020)
So ‽istis reclaims
and ponders a phrase much heard this week - and posted and tweeted and posted
again: ‘lest we forget’. And ‽istis wonders whether you stopped on
Wednesday for two minutes and what went through your thoughts, heart or soul:
‽ perhaps the name of a family member, known or only named; near or far in time or in place; on one
side or the ‘other’; armed forces, support, civilian; ‘legitimate’ target or ‘collateral’
damage; killed, murdered, gassed, shot, bombed, raped, tortured, violated in
every way imaginable and unimaginable to most – save the inflicting and the
inflicted; missing in action, perhaps stories as well as bodies gone; wounded or
utterly, utterly broken in body, mind, will or spirit, things spoken, unspoken,
unspeakable…?
‽ possibly lines of poetry
caught on this week’s breeze - surviving their way out of the lines of trenches
and dug-outs and broken hearts to maybe remind us again that victory and defeat
could be imposters both, and that somehow (through blind-eye or fear or force
or fatigue or naïve optimism or belief or delusion or illusion) we may have all
lost too much already by the time the smoke begins, by the time we can no
longer see everyone in the mirror and by the time it is deemed necessary for
there to be a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’…?
And ‽istis wonders what else we might forget?
…including, perhaps, possibly, maybe what February,
March, April and beyond was like:
·
when most were afraid
·
when we discovered that governments could, and
planes didn’t have to
·
when we knew who an essential worker was
·
when it seemed as though no-one might be immune
·
when we almost believed that no-one is safe unless
we are all safe
and before the lessons (that
we thought we were being taught, finally) had perhaps faded again into the ‘not-so-new-normal’.
Yet, if somehow we can
just remember, then how different the world might still be…?
© Pistis
NB: further reflections and comments linked to this
week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily
indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders
