Battlefields to Butterflies

A poem I wrote for the World War One Royal Parks memorial event in 2018.

Battlefields to Butterflies

The battlefields of World War One,
A shell-shocked no man’s land,
Where death walked through the trenches,
And took each soldiers hand.

A battered, shattered, hostile land,
Of sorrow, pain and fear,
And prayers that soon the war would end,
Perhaps by Spring next year.

Then in this muddy battlefield,
A butterfly appears,
Wings of white, with bright red tips
Like blood, wept through the years.

It flits across the British trenches,
Over no man’s land,
And rests on an old Gatling gun,
Close to a German’s hand.

The soldier pauses for a while,
To gaze upon this sight,
This fragile beauty fills his heart,
With joy far from the fight.

And now so many years have passed,
In time the land has healed,
For seeds of peace have been released,
Across the battlefield.

Poppies grow where blood was shed,
And dance against blue skies,
Now nature’s forces are deployed,
One million butterflies.

Thank you for reading! For more poems please visit my website www.davidspoems.co.uk