The single candle I lit as part of the WWI centenary ‘Lights Out’ event, 10pm-11pm on 4 August 2014, to commemorate all of those who lost their lives.
“Dulce et Decorum Est”
By Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
“Lights out; but also, lights on”
By Musa Okwonga.
Lights out; but also, lights on.
Lights should be shone into every corner,
Into every corner of each battlefield
and each soul of those sending them to die.
Lights should go on in our minds,
when we recognise the pattern of all this happening again.
Lights on in Israel-Palestine, Ukraine; in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria;
Lights on in South Sudan, in Congo;
Lights on in the regions of our globe
That our tongues and our history books do not yet know,
but soon will.
So lights on for the Central African Republic,
For the Rohingya and for West Papua,
Because this is War;
A virus in endless search of new hosts,
Settling on those who have not yet developed resistance,
Whilst those who survive it
Are not yet eager enough to share the cure.
Read more about the Lights Out event.
Kelly and Kamera 