All Souls

I think the secular world doesn't pay much heed to All Souls Day - come to think of it, there's not much mention of All Saints either, unless people actually expand "hallowe'en" as a concept - but I've always loved it as a chance to remember the people who have mattered to us, a list, quite literally, that grows with each passing year. Since the pandemic, our church has celebrated this remembrance online, with the chance to light a candle at home as the list of names is quietly read out - the souls from our own individual pasts, and those from our current church community now no longer in the pews with us. And I've always loved singing "Lead, kindly light" and "Be still, my soul ..."

There was, of course, a whole day before that - a day in which I did indeed go shopping before breakfast. I did a washing and hung it out in the slightly-bright morning for a couple of hours before a passing shower had me retrieve it all again. I went out to collect a prescription (we seem to be doing this all too often these days) and realised that I could barely walk because of the pain in my hip, a newish horror that I think was exacerbated by the long sit in the car yesterday on a journey that seemed to take for ever. (I looked at a few self-help exercise videos on YouTube and spent some time exercising in the late afternoon; it seems to have helped.)

The photo above comes from a snatched walk along the old road at Benmore, when we realised that we were going to have to have our dinner at 6pm if we were going to make it to the online service. We were rewarded with some lovely light in the sky, some glowing colours in the woods, the extraordinary sight (and smell) of gunnera plants which were beginning to decompose, and a fantastic sunset sky as we drove home. (Extra)

NOVEMBER POEM

The month of remembering  
Of bringing to mind
The hosts of heaven
And the unnumbered ones
The quiet and the lowly
And those who died
Beneath the guns
Their youth despoiled
Their life unlived.

The lines advance
Beneath grey sky
On stubbled fields
Guns sloped as if
In ordered dance.
Ducks fall and splash
The dogs run low
Death whispers still
Remember, remember.

C.M.M. 11/05