Vandaag in deze rubriek ‘Now Poppies Grow’, een modern gedicht van de hand van S.J. Robinson, een 40-jarige dichter die zich geregeld laat inspireren door de Eerste Wereldoorlog. 

Here, once, a soldier died in stalemate slow / Now where he fell, bright poppies grow/

Once horror reigned and death was rife / Missing comrades haunted soldier’s life  /

The shells, the noise, the battle throng / A whistle foretold sleep eternal long ; /

For, over the top, he rejoined dead friends / In that sweet peace which never ends /

Eighteen or twenty, maybe less, / Soldier’s age of death, upon that crest /

A wastefull lost, a generation flown - / There, lie many, still Unknown /

A chilling hush fills the mourning air / They rest here, safe, without  age or care /

Beneath long grass, under air so still / Peace hides their graves, in trench, on hill /

The most worthy monument ? A poppied field / To the carnage ? The Iron Harvest yield /

But from where the birds in war have flown, / The ghosts of Ypres and Somme live on…