From the mud of Flanders’ fields
hell-raised by Napoleon’s troops,
earth-churned by hundreds of horses’ hooves,
the poppies are calling,
the seeds of red bursting from disturbed ground,
a sea as scarlet as the blooded bodies
that rotted beneath their blooms.

From the clay, ceramic petals are crafted,
884,246 flowers, wire-stemmed,
as stiff as each skeleton remembered,
planted in London’s moated earth
by volunteer hands
whose boots squelch
beside the rain-soaked Tower.

From the dungeon tunnels crowds emerge
amid megaphones of officialdom
taking up arms to warn of dangers,
halt tubes, stop traffic.
Still the poppies’ silent call
draws thousands to tread their path
towards the poppy canyon.

From the Weeping Window
across snaking causeway walkways,
there is a blanket hush
as silent as London’s awestruck grief
in Diana’s Kensington Gardens,
each adult and child here dumbfounded
by the scale of death remembered.

From the runway at Camp Bastion,
troops line to leave Afghanistan’s opium fields,
their flack jackets and helmets
hiding pain on their faces,
trauma in their eyes,
leaving four hundred and fifty-three ghosts of comrades
in smouldering hot desert dusk.

From the Tower history stands watching
its bloody litany of wars and beheadings,
death masks from cruel centuries
of torture and public hangings,
flickering Youtube images
of helpless axed victims
of Isis’ black-balaclava barbarism.

From the skies, birds flock down
in uncommon swoop across stone ramparts,
as if called by muted military bugle
to give thanks to lost lives, battle-sacrificed.
“You feel you have to come,”
say the four million poppy-watchers,
as if mustered from beyond the grave.

Written in 2014 for the Centenary when ceramic poppies surrounded the Tower of London in memory of the start of World War One. And today in remembrance of all those who fight for their country and for peace.
Photo Steven Bidmead