The Bittern Cry Poem by Dónall Dempsey

My children now...

throw themselves
into the blue sky

rolling down the hill
of Summer

tumbling over & over
exploding with laughter

as they lie stretched out
in a field of poppies

that delights the eye

& might clouds
re-enact mighty battles

the dead lost
somewhere between here & Heaven

my children now
their bodies strewn

amongst a field of poppies

as if scattered
like those who had fallen

in some long ago morning

that History has recorded
turned into

a text
my children now
are studying

lying in their laughter

scattered amongst these
the same fields

of poppies
forever returning

to grace our present
summer

my children now

the happy inheritors
of the lost dead.