11:00-11-11-2017

The lights in our Farmers' Market dim and there is momentary confusion till someone whispers eleven o'clock and we stand in silence. I look at my lapel, the poppy is missing, again. I think of Passchendaele, a battle now one hundred years ago, where more than four thousand Canadians died. Yet today only just over a third of us can even pinpoint it to the First World War. The lights return, I pay for my cheese and move on to meat, fruit and vegetables. On the way out, I buy another plastic poppy from the cadets at the door and hope they will remember why.