Instead, therefore, whilst our diminutive heroine "cools down", here is a piece written by my partner; composed as she visited the WWI commemorative art installation of poppies at the Tower of London.
Blood Swept Lands & Seas
of Red
This
was the name of the art installation in London London
The Tower of London
They
are coming in waves. Something vaguely
unsettling [is] going on here. [On my] arrival here [earlier, there was] only a
certain amount of good-natured jostling followed by apologies & awkward
smiles. But now tourists of all hues
& accents pour down Tower Hill as the coaches & tubes disgorge their
contents in droves. A man holds a ladder
above the heads of the slowly-moving morass & a pair of Police-officers
keeps a vigilant watch, mounted atop powerful, patient horses, both of whom
blink unflinchingly as their photographs are taken & their noses are
repeatedly tapped by strangers.
The
art installation is undeniably beautiful. A single poppy for every UK soldier
lost in the bloody slaughter of WWI – & [in this] setting; England’s mighty
fortress, which has held firm for centuries -
stronghold of our crown & resting place for executed monarchs & traitors
alike. The mere words “the Tower” once
filled Londoners’ hearts with dread – & now it is almost impossible to
withstand the huge tides of people rushing to its walls, marshalled by a small
army of people with loudhailers trying desperately to keep the crowds in motion
& avoid a devastating crush.
There
is something ugly about this now. People
are pushing to get at the front, for the “best” view. An heavily-pregnant woman has just stumbled
after being shoved. Those with
high-powered cameras seem utterly oblivious to the presence of tiny children in
front of them as they jostle & position in order to get the best
angle. One man barely notices that he
has kicked over a toddler, so absorbed is he in focussing his lenses, & he
grunts the most cursory of apologies to the tot’s parents. Helicopters offering “aerial tours” fly &
hover noisily overhead at regular intervals, & still more surges of people
come.
What have they come to see? The sea of red spilling from the mighty Tower & filling its moat, representing the blood of the fallen? The art installation that is the current zeitgeist, the pièce du jour, to keep pace with fashion? An opportunity for a “poppy selfie” to prove to their Facebook friends that they were here?
Or do they fix their eye on one single poppy & spare a thought for the lost life that that individual ceramic bloom commemorates? Perhaps a 19 year-old Tommy, shot in the throat by a German sniper, fallen to the ground in abject terror; the last coherent sound he is able to fix upon as he begins to drown in the endless mud & his own blood is that of his mates being yelled at by their commanding officer: “Forget him! Leave him! He’s gone; there’s nothing you can do! Keep going…!”
Perhaps some do see these poppies as the 888,246 individual lives snuffed out so brutally. But for the most part – today, at least – more visitors seem keener to push & mutter obscenities at the back of a stranger’s head, when they deem him to have “taken too long” to capture his photograph & his memory.
I
wonder what the ghosts of the Tower make of all this? I found elements here more ghoulish than even
Anne Boleyn’s reputed spectral wanderings.
No comments:
Post a Comment