Reflections on a Visit to Ypres

In Flanders, once again the fields are green,

starred with bright red corn poppies. Trees grow strong

and lush. In woods the bluebells are in bloom,

but now the contours of the land have changed.

The tracks of trenches can still be seen and walked.

Bomb craters, grassed and filled but hollows still.

 

There are no acrid smells of mustard gas.

The smokeless tang of cordite has long gone.

The stench of stagnant mud, of unwashed men,

of human death no longer lingers here.

But, at the forest’s edge, a parched black oak

keeps watch, a sentinel of that old war.

 

No bombs explode, no bullets ping to find

another young, gullible volunteer 

doing his bit. The songs of blackbirds, thrushes 

and nightingales cut through the morning mist 

whilst buzzing bees populate the gardens.

Sheep bleat at any visitors. With luck

you’ll hear a cuckoo calling from the trees.

 

Farms flourish, gardens thrive, flooding the air

with sweet honeysuckle, roses, jasmine.

Even the smell of freshly spread manure 

is welcome in this land made fresh again.

On the horizon stands a village now,

its skyline marked, once only, by a spire,

but now broken by granite monuments.

 

In corners of these foreign fields you see

places that are forever England. Here 

stand groups of pristine-white Portland stone slabs,

standing as at attention. As in death,

as in life, known unto God and family.