Scarlet
Silent in peace, no artillery thunder;
Buried the signs of a world torn asunder
Close your eyes and forget the crops and the cattle
And hear through the years the inferno of battle
Scarlet the blood of the wounded and dying
Agonised groans and the soft, helpless crying
Scarlet the poppies on ravaged lands blooming
Reminding us all of the misery looming
Slender the poppies, so fragile and tender,
Yet what a story symbolic they render.
As petals fall, like blood from disaster
The seeds promise hope of new life thereafter.
While poppies bloom they remind us forever
That going to war is really not clever.
Thank you! A lovely, evocative and appropriate poem.
ReplyDeleteI have written a poem every year for Remembrance Sunday every year since I was 10, except over the last few years with the pressures of nursing my mother and personal ill health. This is my first return. It's something I hold sacred since I first learned about my great aunt's boyfriend who never returned from the Somme.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the poem. My grandfather and father fought in World War I and World War II. My father took a long time to get over his experience and would never watch any show about war. He told me about some of is experiences both good and bad. I thank all of our soldiers who put their lives on the line for us.
ReplyDeleteAmen!
DeleteThank you for your tribute: World War I has not received the attention it should here, even with the 100th anniversaries in the last few years.
ReplyDeleteIn Italy we “celebrate” (not really anymore) on November 4th. My mother-in-law’s grandfather, to whom she was very close, used to celebrate that day more than his actual birthday: he had enlisted rather than study. I guess the last couplet could very well apply to him...
It was supposed to be a war to end all wars and make a world fit for heroes, and in a way it started over a mix of tremendous coincidence and the egos of sundry men ... Gavrilo Princep failed his assassination attempt, was mooching about in coffee shop when the chauffeur of Franz Ferdinand took a wrong turn and stalled the car right in front of him. And then Austria was determined to go to war with Serbia [paradoxically Franz Ferdinand had been in favour of more rights for Serbs] despite Kaiser Wilhelm being certain it could be sorted out with diplomacy. And once one army moved the rest became inevitable. A stupid war over stupid causes started by stupid men. God bless the poor bloody bastards who died for their hubris
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