Disturbed ground no longer disturbed,
not even a scar to remember its wounds by,
only blood-petals riding the banked earth.
When the sun once before angled itself
in a summer-hazy sky, where the cloud
hesitated like mist cut free from heaven,
this house hid its face in the shadowed eaves.
Noon or soon after heard gunfire
echo against its whitewashed walls
and the arch-top window in the gable
saw muzzle-flash at the woodland edge.
Soldiers behind trees knelt as if in prayer
or else summoning the courage to run
for cover over open ground.
So far to reach the doorway, and it so small,
with its cool shade offering rest or salvation
from today’s withering fire, from this war
in which a blameless summer was dying.
How many fell in that shadow or lay
lit but lifeless in the sunlit garden,
how much blood spilled and lent its colour
to poppies that would not bloom till the soil
gave up its secrets in our tomorrow?
© BH, 2023
It was an image, posted online with a challenge to find the story. I thought to draw out a narrative, maybe give it half an hour or so.
This, then, is the result. I was channelling wartime, 14-18 perhaps, but not specifically so. Weeds of disturbed ground, if truth be told, were my first thought, poppies the colour of blood. What else?
The story unfolds. History becomes a condition the of soil - in which so much resides.
The original of the image in the illustration, I've discovered, is a painting, oil on wood panel, by Romona Youngquist, entitled "Cottage at Dusk" (2022). I found it here via Google lens. Happy to give further credits or even remove should the artist request it…
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