Poppies
In Flemish fields the farmers ply their trades
And break the soil for man’s essential corn.
Soon Gallic ploughs give way to English spades
That leave the arts of peace and joy, forlorn.
Where once the drill received the fruitful seed,
Great gashes in the fecund earth appear,
The trenches where the men will scream and bleed,
And clerks and boys will learn unnatural fear.
But now another plough rakes up the ground
The shells from distant guns fresh wounds impose,
Upon the sinless earth with eerie sound.
And all that’s fair and high in man just goes
Yet from the earth for each man’s blood that’s shed
A fluttering monument grows up in red
© Peter M. Grinham December 2014
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