White Poppies

(A Macalla, After a Century's War)

From Flanders Fields the poppies grow

Inside our houses, row on row,

They pierce our breasts with scarlet wings

And mark the place where still larks sing

Faintly in the century's woe.

These are the dead, their name is Hedd.

Their graves file the past in serried

Ranks of stone, pale in the morning

of Flander's fields.

Take up no quarrel with your foe,

The flame of flowers in your hand.

Tread lightly on the soil we share

With shadows who will never know

- Though paper poppies still we wear,

In memory, of Flander's fields.

All photographs were taken in Ypres, with Hedd the Peace Mala Dove Number 5, in August 2017.

The original poem is, of course, 'In Flanders Fields' by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae,

written on May 3rd 1915, Ypres.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.