Remembrance Day
Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2023 12:43 am
Tomorrow (12th), barring accidents or major problems, I will stand for a while with the old men in uniform at the outdoor service. Every year the faces change, and some of the older ones vanish.
This poem is from 2019, when there were a few noticeable changes in the line-up..
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Remembrance Day 2019
Keeping it under their hats
This year the sunlight picked out the hats,
mostly black berets, mostly worn straight,
but a few cocked at an angle
in a proud and private code.
Two dark green berets,
one sandy, one bright blue.
Two Gurkha hats, dead level.
One above a hard unsmiling face.
The other incongruous,
framing a 'grandfatherly' smile
with twinkling eyes behind his glasses.
Colourful headgear for the Sikhs
and other Indians. But warrior's eyes.
They don't look like this when working,
smiling at customers in their restaurant.
And a man in a black belted raincoat,
with a trilby hat, looking, God forbid,
like someone from the Gestapo.
Plus an elderly Indian lady,
in a long dark green dress
with a poppy print.
Standing with the men.
Gyppo
This poem is from 2019, when there were a few noticeable changes in the line-up..
=====
Remembrance Day 2019
Keeping it under their hats
This year the sunlight picked out the hats,
mostly black berets, mostly worn straight,
but a few cocked at an angle
in a proud and private code.
Two dark green berets,
one sandy, one bright blue.
Two Gurkha hats, dead level.
One above a hard unsmiling face.
The other incongruous,
framing a 'grandfatherly' smile
with twinkling eyes behind his glasses.
Colourful headgear for the Sikhs
and other Indians. But warrior's eyes.
They don't look like this when working,
smiling at customers in their restaurant.
And a man in a black belted raincoat,
with a trilby hat, looking, God forbid,
like someone from the Gestapo.
Plus an elderly Indian lady,
in a long dark green dress
with a poppy print.
Standing with the men.
Gyppo