Serre Road Cemetery No. 2

Our last stop: Serre Road Cemetery No. 2. The sacred ground was covered with headstone after headstone--I thought that they would never end.

Almost every one of them was engraved with the words "A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR. KNOWN UNTO GOD."

Here we were each given a memorial cross to place within the cemetery; the small wooden cross was adorned with one simple red poppy, below the words "In Remembrance." I placed mine on a row entirely composed of unknown graves.

Behind the cemetery were more of these wonderful wheat fields.

In the distance was a small chapel

and another cemetery--these cemeteries dot the landscape all throughout Europe, one after the other.

The experiences throughout the day ultimately created an uncanny feeling within me concerning death: that is, I had no fear, no discomfort nor anxiety. Like Thomas Sidney Cooper's "Reposing on God's Acre," I felt completely at home in the peace and the beauty of the cemetery--it was most definitely holy ground.