Aujourd’hui, nous sommes le mercredi, vingt janvier, deux mille seize

I want to feed the birds, again, in peace and then die.  Is that asking too much?

The cry has died, the sigh has ceased.  The reign of man has ended.  The cry that once rang loud and clear and true all across this land is no more.  No one to cry out and no one left to hear even if they might choose to do so.

It is Wednesday, yes.  And it is January, for sure.  The twentieth day to be exact.  And we are well into the second half of the second decade of this now no longer really new millennium.  The war to end all wars was raging, working hard to end all wars indeed, one hundred years ago today.  It can be mighty cold over there when the battle rages, or perhaps stops in stalemate with trenches drawn and excavated to briefly protect those already dead, or dying, or soon to be either or perhaps even both.  Such is the way of war but that was when the cry still rang out and there were still those alive, perhaps then left for dying, who had answered or might still respond to that call, hear that cry, stand and take it no more.

Something had to be done; something still remains to be done on the lifeless and still fields of that forgotten battlefield, no, not then and still not now but someday soon, someway different yet somehow still the same.

No one heeds and no one hears and no one cries and no one dies and the dead shall yet come here no more.  Not as they once did.  We are hardened to their voiceless cry and we remain seated; always seated and in no hurry to really get anywhere.  No cry, no response.  No call, no return.  No life no love no happiness no way.  Not here and not now.

One hundred years ago it raged and perhaps still does somewhere.  But not here.

The birds- yes, they cry out but now in hunger and not in happiness.  They must be left to live and I must feed them ever still before the coming of the winter dead.  They too will die if nothing is done and there really is nothing to be done that anyone still here can still do.  The birds do not sing- they cry out- and I would like to give to them all that is left to me to give before I can die.  Hopefully in peace.

That may be too much to ask for or expect but it is not too much to hope for given all that I have done for them…and you, yes for you.   There was always that.  Always them and always you those hundred years ago when the cry still sounded.

We then marched and moved on and then sank slowly back into the earth- that cold, hard, unyielding earth of winter long ago- back into it once again.  No battle raged but the birds did cry out and I left then, finally, flush with hope and courage that, if I could just feed them once more it would all be right even there and then without me.

Once I thought it was they who cried out and now I know that for all of these lifeless years it has been me; just me.

It was cold and the earth was hard those hundred years ago.  The birds no longer sing nor cry.  There is no life and no love left there on the bleak and barren plains of sad Trewiligier.

Just quiet sadness for those passed.   Those like him, and her, and them.

And, of course, those too much like me.

Vents froids soufflent; mais oui.

Aujourd’hui, nous sommes le mercredi, vingt janvier, mille neuf cents seize