Sketches and vignettes from la Dordogne: The French cornflower

Monday, 16 November 2015

The French cornflower

By coincidence, I was editing the last paragraphs of my previous blog entry

(http://camilledefleurville.blogspot.fr/2015/11/11-novembre-2015-today-is-still-11.html)

when I heard of the terrorists attacks in Paris on Friday night.

Here were the words I was writing in the last but one paragraph:

“Today is Remembrance Day. We do not have poppies in France, but cornflowers, blue as the sky, blue as the sea, blue, deep, deep blue. Blue as the life in summer. And Remembrance Day for me is the memory of the dead, the memory of the people who suffered and died, not only in WWI but also in WWII and the conflicts and wars that followed. We humans have made a mess of the Earth over more than a century.”

Indeed, what a mess we humans have made of the Earth during more than a century! What a mess we are making of it today still: Paris, Beirut, Iraq, Syria, the whole Middle-East, Central Asia, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South-America, Western World, Russia, Asia; whole continents seethe and bleed with wars, known or unknown, open or undeclared, martyred towns and countries, tortured people, individuals or groups.

Do we need terrorist attacks to remember these facts? Bleak facts. Dreary facts. Hard facts. There is no feeling in what I am saying. No pity, no anger, no tears. Just facts.

The world is at war with itself and cries.

"The Cry" (Jean-Michel Folon)

If I was proven right with my last but one paragraph, I hope that I shall be proven right with the last:

“But there is always a tiny cornflower that raises its head to speak of peace and brotherhood: beyond policies and economy and finance and industry, there is culture.”

May we all, humans of good will, find the gestures, the looks, the smiles, the words, the caresses, the little kindness at our own small measure, to make the world a Common House, or better, a Common Home, where peace will be as comprehensive as possible. And I believe that love and culture can be formidable weapons.