Where Apple Trees Are Blooming...

The cannons cease and the darkness falls,

And those fluttering things are men. Edgar A. Guest

Phoenix Rising invites us to use another poets words to inspire our own. 

 

The orchard is a palace where the apple trees are blooming
Nature fulfills promises that only spring can keep
Cold autumnal deathbeds after winter's icy grooming
Spawns a metamorphosis where fields of flowers sleep

I stroll the early morning where the lilacs are adorning
Twigs that seemed but lifeless sprigs before awakening
Our oohs and aahs and the applause of tongue-tied beggar-barons
Contentment's luxury is free and not a purchased Thing

...And I can't help but think of those who fled with almost nothing
Save the clothes upon their backs and children in their arms
Never mind that skies are kind and apple trees are blooming
Evil has no season;bent on ugliness that harms

Here among the song of birds and freedom bought with bodies
Hope is juxtaposed like spring, with suffering and death 
And mingled with the virgin hues of greens and blues, gold, purple
Runs the blood of fallen comrades yielding their last breath

The cannons cease and the darkness falls and those fluttering things are men
And boys and girls that will not see another spring again

Janet~

Lest We Forget...

Easy Service

When an empty sleeve or a sightless eye

Or a legless form I see,

I breathe my thanks to my God on High

For His watchful care o'er me.

And I say to myself, as the cripple goes

Half stumbling on his way:

I may brag and boast, but that brother knows

Why the old flag floats to-day.

I think as I sit in my cozy den

Puffing one of my many pipes

That I've served with all of my fellow men

The glorious Stars and Stripes.

Then I see a troop in the faded blue

And a few in the dusty gray,

And I have to laugh at the deeds I do

For the flag that floats to-day.

I see men tangled in pointed wire,

The sport of the blazing sun,

Mangled and maimed by a leaden fire

As the tides of battle run,

And I fancy I hear their piteous calls

For merciful death, and then

The cannons cease and the darkness falls,

And those fluttering things are men.

Out there in the night they beg for death,

Yet the Reaper spurns their cries,

And it seems his jest to leave them breath

For their pitiful pleas and sighs.

And I am here in my cosy room

In touch with the joys of life,

I am miles away from the fields of doom

And the gory scenes of strife.

I never have vainly called for aid,

Nor suffered real pangs of thirst,

I have marched with life in its best parade

And never have seen its worst.

In the flowers of ease I have ever basked,

And I think as the Flag I see

How much of service from some it's asked,

How little of toil from me.

Edgar Albert Guest :