War Poets

Line count: 24

In Flanders Fields poets lie
Crosses mark their resting place,
Poppies blow above their graves
And birds intone the joy of life.

They kept their rendezvous with death,
They marched to meet his bloody scythe -
Disguised as white star and mustard gas;
They died and left their words behind.

Is there a greater love then this:
To die for the nation of your birth,
To leave your bones in a foreign land
Marked by salvation’s cross?

It’s not a petty case of right or wrong,
Hate your enemy is the rule of war;
War poets knew the glory of it all:
Fight, write and leave your words behind.

Winter received news of the war:
The Great War To End All Wars,
Snow in the trenches, bayonets and guns,
Unofficial Christmas truce, carols sung.

The cost of a century of wars:
The unbroken march of the dead,
Poets killed in the bloom of youth,
Their legacy the words they left behind.