Poppies Among the Crosses

Fields of France are filled with blood-red poppies Where also bloom the lily-white crosses: Each buried youth a seed, now bursting forth Into a stark white cruciform flower: Row upon row, rank after serried rank, A spiky grid overlying acre After acre in silent panoply, Swan-mute as stillborns, yet shrieking their pain. A century has failed to lay their griefs. But such gardens aren’t anywise unique. On every continent, in every age, The fields are sown: and so among the trees And forests, steppes and prairies, cities And wastelands, the precious seed is planted, The harvest bitter in its barrenness. Instead of poppies, palms or rank lianes, Brush or tundra, timber, sedge or seaweed Grow where crosses never got to flower: Even those gaunt reminders are missing To give their witness to the seed thus sown, The sacrifice and sacred blood there spent. And so it goes: so it’s been since people First appeared. And will go on: tomorrow And the day after, still the sowing will Continue. Perhaps someday our wisdom And compassion may grow enough to wean Us of this savage, mindless husbandry: Today, it seems a thousand years away.