Red Poppies of Flanders

Red Poppies of Flanders Digging trenches Dawn to dusk Forcing shovels In the dust... Weather's freezing Clothes to skin While it's raining, Yet, again... Rank and muddy Head to toe Slip and sliding As we go... The blinding lights The deaf'ning sounds The endless nights In muddy grounds... Trenches flooding Through the ranks Muddy waters Breach the banks... Wounds ooze bleeding Muddy mix Smell the Reaper Reaching Styx... Men and horses Side by side Some lay wounded Others died... Still we hold to Fleeting hope Among the shells And stinking smoke... Through fields of mud And charred stick trees Where nothing grows Deep stained in blood... But the poppy Bright blood red From these grounds Of the dead... These battle-scared Fields' true price Remembers All Who sacrificed. deborah burch©07.21.17