Empty Trenches

Flowers grow in empty trenches
The autumn rains pause for a space
The soil is devoid of all death's stenches
The sky is grey with winter's face

The land itself seems to mourn
For sons and fathers claimed by war
On saddened trees no leaves are borne
The guns are silenced and sound no more

Out bleeds crimson from the gloom
The blood of soldiers shed for me
In the form of poppy bloom
Young men who died for their country

An old soldier limps through a field
Stiff with wounds not rightly healed
A fiery crop Flemish soil yields
Once where cannon's thunder pealed

It is here he bends his aged frame
His mind runs over with memory
He thinks of the war that left him lame
His weary eyes wander up to me

He plucks the flower from the stem
With quaking hands he folds it near
I know his mind dwells on them
Fallen friends he still holds dear

The poppy's scarlet blazes forth
As the flower is placed in my palm
"Dear child, to you I pass this torch,"
He says. "Remember those who are gone."

The tragic flower trembles in hand
A responsibility I scarcely comprehend
As sure as blossoms cover the land
I shall keep the torch until the end