Poppies Of Nothing Poem by Nadia Daniel

They waft in the darkness
Those red headed beauties
of spilled blood in a curling pool
And the eye in the middle, the black pupil
staring with the cold emptiness of death

Their petals curl up; so daintily- like that-
a graceful woman, arms bent demurely upwards
with that enticing roll at the end- the flourish, of the end
and from their ebony heart stems the green stem of life-
when it is not life, but the ending of life

And they waft in the darkness, waft in the breeze
upon the field where many have died
and they bend, as if they are sad, or remorseful, in that dark wind
and maybe they are (or not)

If you pick a poppy
you might feel a sudden wrench of vengeance, and rage
as they infuse in you their feelings of the man who lies beneath them
as they are the flowers of his unmarked grave

how wicked are they? - to inspire, these rituals of mourning
infidels, such blasphemy they partake as they are tucked into a button, a sleeve;
when the dead are dead, they are gone
gone forever for a meaningless cause
and we should not mourn them, and remember them with our flowers of blood and minutes of silence
because it is us who made them pass away
before their time
and it is us who cut them in the spring of their youth;
us who shattered their bodies, their minds
and now they have departed, and we have had no time for farewells-
so now the time has passed, why must we say goodbye, again and again, to no one?

Yet it happens, and no one stops it the cycle of death and death
and murder and bloodshed
and fierce pain and empty, echoing grief
represented by the middle of the poppy, the shadow of fear
and it's outside rim of hurt and scarlet tears.