IN YPERS FIELDS

 

IN YPRES FIELDS …  Maureen Clifford ©  The #ScribblyBarkPoet

 The stinking mud, the rats, the flies,

all shaded in a drab grey hue,

as deadly gas contaminates.

the battlefields whilst drifting through.

A yellow cloud that covers all

a different shade indeed from grey.

It burned the skin and sent men blind.

None were immune …the gas held sway.

A sea of mud, with shell holes filled

with stinking water, filth and slime

Three years of shelling claiming back

the swamplands that man had defined

as farmland once – alas, no more

it swallowed men and horses too,

sucking them into its quagmire.

to quickly disappear from view.

 

The guns were stilled, birds once more sang –

one felt the land was gathering

her thoughts once more - it seemed unreal

to have sweet silence quietly steal

into the day, after such rage.

 Though time itself would not assuage

the memories of that damned war

that destroyed thousands in its maw.

 

An eerie silence crossed the land.

The western front guns ceased their fire.

Recalled at the eleventh hour.

Reprieve for those men in the mire.

The cost of war is far too high,

for thirteen million lives were lost.

Sixty-two thousand Aussies died

and still today – we count the cost.

On Flanders fields the poppies grew

in Belgian soil churned up by war

‘nourished by blood’ the soldiers claimed.

A thought that was hard to ignore.

The mother took them to her heart,

 and covered them with sheets of green

and o’er their bodies poppies bloomed -

remembrance of that war obscene.

 

Now every year around the world,

as nations flags fly proud, unfurled.

Red poppies decorate the scene

reminding us of what has been.

But sad to say, no lessons learnt

for still by wars nations are burnt,

until again weapons are stilled

and nations mourn those they have killed.

 

 

17.03.2026