As we approach Remembrance Sunday I am reposting this sonnet about the two minutes silence, which was first published in my book Sounding the Seasons. I’m posting it early so that any one who wishes to, can use it in services or events on this Remembrance Sunday.
So here is how it came to be written. On Remembrance Day I was at home listening to the radio and when the time came for the Two Minutes Silence. Suddenly the radio itself went quiet. I had not moved to turn the dial or adjust the volume. There was something extraordinarily powerful about that deep silence from a ‘live’ radio, a sense that, alone in my kitchen, I was sharing the silence with millions. I stood for the two minutes, and then, suddenly, swiftly, almost involuntarily, wrote this sonnet. You can hear the sonnet, as I recorded it on November 11th some years ago, minutes after having composed it, by clicking on the title.
November pierces with its bleak remembrance
Of all the bitterness and waste of war.
Our silence tries but fails to make a semblance
Of that lost peace they thought worth fighting for.
Our silence seethes instead with wraiths and whispers,
And all the restless rumour of new wars,
The shells are falling all around our vespers,
No moment is unscarred, there is no pause,
In every instant bloodied innocence
Falls to the weary earth ,and whilst we stand
Quiescence ends again in acquiescence,
And Abel’s blood still cries in every land
One silence only might redeem that blood
Only the silence of a dying God.
__________
Republished with gracious permission from Malcolm Guite’s website. This essay was first published here in November 2022.
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Truly, war is a waste. It is the slaughter of the innocent in the pursuit of the One ring of power. We deceive ourselves in the rightness of our cause. Unbeknownst to us, lies justify our cause. We are pawns in a game played by the the rulers of the darkness of this world.
Thank you for this. It was once called Armistice Day. It was originally observed on the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. Years later, there were old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They said in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So there were some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
There was an ‘awe’ful silence in heaven after the seventh seal ( Revelation 8:1) was opened by the Lamb and the end of history of this current world had ended and Gods plan of redemption in this world was finished.