Verdant Sentinels

Vimy Oaks rise up

Seeds of hope born of wasteland

Watch over the Dead

Acorns few, gathered

Rescue made by foreign hands

Away from decay

Planted far away

Vimy Oaks grow tall and strong

In Ontario

New generation

Remembrance of what was lost

On soil far away

Harvest the acorns

Transport them across the sea

In warm steady hands

Planted once again

On Arras’ hills and craters

Roots spread deeply now

Cradling lost soldiers

In blanket of mossy soil

Quiet Sentinels

***

For anyone who has been to the hallowed site, towering white pillars reaching up to the sky on the ridge that saw so much courage, leadership, community, loss, and death, Mother statue looking solemnly over the valley, watching over the boys she lost in the push to take what was thought to be futile, it is impossible to stand under her gaze without feeling the weight of war and great loss.

Walking along the path to the monument, land scarred by shells, still treacherous, only sure footed sheep daring to walk along the crater rims, it is hard to imagine the verdant hills destitute landscape denuded of life. The sacred package, acorns found and squirrelled away and packaged, sent to find a new life across the Atlantic, in Canada. Two generations, trees now bearing their own fruit, the desire to return, to find reunion, satisfied, transported once again to the hills of Arras and planted on the lands that serve as makeshift cemeteries to unknown soldiers, a beautiful contrast to the names carved in stone at the monument’s base.