Please. Don’t Let Me Forget!

Just briefly this week, I paused in the morning sun…
And stared at the waving beauty of blood-red Poppies in our garden.

Rich, deep velvet cups.
Their glory so achingly brief.
Fragile and beautiful.

Their cousins still grow in the scars of Flanders fields.
And that rich, blood-red once boiled in the surf of Normandy’s beaches.

Young lives were spent there.
Their glory so achingly brief.
Fragile and beautiful.

And all spent, selflessly, for me.
That I might live.
That I might be free.
That I might live clothed in luxury and privilege.

Here, in this land my heart calls ‘Home’.

At times I hear their sighs of disbelief.
I see them gently shaking their heads.

When I complain, or murmur or mumble.
When I fret over life’s trivia, moments of “unfair!” and problems so petty.

When I feel that I deserve more.
When my strivings are for baubles and dust.

So, in this week.
This week of Remembering and Gratitude.
This is my prayer…

Let my thoughts be lifted by their giving-beyond-giving.
Let my actions be more noble than grasping for more.
Let my work be for something more than mere gold and my glory.

Let their selflessness heal my selfishness.
Let their fragile, brief and beautiful lives… become eternal whispers to me.

And please.
Please, Don’t Let Me Forget!