Thinking about Wilfred Owen whilst visiting Salisbury Cathedral 

Just a few yards away from our house, in front of the church, is a small war memorial - there are a dozen or so names - every November, on Armistice Day, poppies are placed at the foot of the memorial - the young men commemorated here were all killed in France - 

I imagine the young men walking on the hills we can see from our garden - I can see them, in my mind's eye, fishing for trout in the bend of the river, cunning and gentle with their fishing rods - I wonder if they waded, barefoot, in the same shallows as I do, every summer -

I used to stand in Waterloo Station, sensing the packed trains come to a halt - I could hear the hiss of steam, smell the smoke from the engines - the same glass in the roof above me, perhaps, as was above those innocents -

This November, I visited Salisbury Cathedral - I came across this memorial set in the wall of the nave - I was unmoved by the words at the base of the memorial - it was those at the top that gave me pause - when the danger was greatest, his smile was loveliest -

I thought of Wilfred Owen, and his preface to his poems - My subject is war, and the pity of war - The poetry is in the pity - 

I looked up at the beautiful vaulted roof, high above me - I could see the whole cathedral full of boyish ghosts - they were as numberless as the blades of grass in our river meadows -