The pity of war

Yesterday I suggested that, despite our many and varied faults, we humans really are quite amazing creatures.

One of our most dreadful faults, and one that we show no sign of overcoming, is our tendency to wage war. Today, as I walked across the Sands of Forvie, listening to the skylarks singing in the sky, I was reminded that 70 years ago this idyllic area was heavily fortified in anticipation of an invasion by Nazi Germany. The reminder came in the form of a pile of used .303 rifle cartridges lying in the sand.

Arms and the Boy

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.

Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads
Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads.
Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,
Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.

For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 - 4 November 1918). War Poet.