The Fallen

I bought a pack
of poppy seeds;
prepared their bed
so carefully,
but summer-long
none showed –
not one bonny
black-eyed face.

Instead,
they grew,
in a place
of their choosing
not of mine...

Amidst
the shingle
and the shale
where kindred seeds
blithely fell;
where nothing else
could survive,
they sprung alive.

Nodding
in the wind;
a barbed-wire fence,
no deterrent – still
they multiply
in crimson splendour
saying, ‘Yes,’
to liberty –
to freedom.

The more uphill the fight,
the more they thrive,
the more I will
remember them.