The Poppies Still Bloom by Audrey M Scott
On one side of the world
the war-torn arid soil
again changes face with
green patch-work, as hand
watered seeds spring to life.
In the harsh countryside
healthy plants push up to
heads that burst into variegated
white to pink-red blooms.
Beautiful they sway in the breeze.
A profit for some peasants survival.
On the other side of the world,
another, and another, and another,
overdosed person dies.
The scream of a pretty blonde
tourist girl is heard piercing the quiet
as still clutching
only the strap of her purse,
she is callously flung over the
hand-rail of a bridge to her
fearful death.
The poppies flourish,
their field of heads waving in the wind
until the time to bleed them of sap.
The white of them like bleached
skulls of death, and the pink like
the spilled blood of victims
robbed of their pittance of money,
to supply someone elses addictions.
The poppies still bloom.
04/14/2002 Posted on 04/13/2002 Copyright © 2024 Audrey M Scott
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