Poppies

 There is a poem in the poppy--
 layered, soft, and fair;
an effusion of nature's wisdom,
and all it gathers near-
And for a field a-flowing
with wind and sultry red,
my thoughts drift to Flanders  
where wistful eyes opened to sun
and closed to dark
The folly of men remembered
 and greatest love forgot

And war did not die
verdant 'neath the sky, and red
flowed for decades beyond,  til now
when we can in stillness reflect
on so many years of people
and so few of peace

Captive of times -- we say
and rue the bloodied days, as if
the choices were not ours; and captive
we remain-- democracy teeters,
tyrants rise, and truth is on the run!

Through summer heat, slanted winter sun
as the world spits back the poisons we have sown
we live in fire and freeze, flood and sere,
ancient mountains of ice melt to rising seas .
We sit in the balance and
 consider the price of life

I remember priceless poppies, red and reaching
bathed in  love of a nearby star, and the young
clash, flash, and fall-- like seeds of autumn
planting for a tomorrow they would not see
as do we all...

In the rise and fall, circle of being,
rotation of the universe, and we
fail to keep the promises made
to Flanders field and so many more
places without such flowered names

And we twist slow in winds of lies   
ground down in jaws of deceit
as if it were not ours
to raise the sword of truth
and wield it with the strength of certainty
that right is within us and
the brightness of the future
burns our eyes