Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

Etched against the cerulean sky-line

The desolate, burned-out corpses

Of stately walnut tree and stalwart pine

Mark the graves of warriors and horses

The lacy tress of emerald spire

That stroked summer’s lithesome breeze

In cannon-bursts of blood and fire

Are reduced to scorched centuries

Where have all the flowers gone

That nodded in the calm of tranquil wood?

They mark the tombs of daughters, sons

Laid to rest in pools of gifted blood

Where have all the flowers gone

That bloomed too short, before they died?

They rest within the gardens where

Humbler posies bloom with pride…

…upon the graves of heroes lost

Before conceived deliverance

To grace the tombs of freedom’s cost

Nature replies in reverence

© Janet Martin

In the movie War Horse I was struck at how swiftly

verdant beauty and tranquility was reduced to ashes and blood.

Written for: Poetic Bloomings