Past the Patina - In Memory of Poppy: Wave Installation

It’s a beautiful thing, as it rises, it rises, it rises,

A blood red wave in the shadow of

A wave of blood in the shadow of

A wave of blood to symbolise the names on

The memorial that pierces the sun.

It’s visually stunning the way the poppies reflect

In the puddles,

A sea of red heads made duller

Lost their colour –

Are they dying or have they already…?

No water can nourish these roots already

They are dead heads fallen like shadows of

Biplane fighters in brave flocks

The resurrected phantoms of their names on

The memorial that pierces the sun.

I’m in awe as it rises, it rises, it rises –

We’ll be home by Christmas –

It’s still rising towering narrowing looming reaching…

It’s stopped

Why did it stop?

They can’t stop it’s not over they’re too young there are too many too many

Too many flowers.

They were real people – note the ‘were’ –

Maybe you knew them

Can you pick them out?

Each face is a flower

A life struck out

But a legend no doubt

Of whom without

You could not take picture after picture after picture

Of your son in the shadow of

A graduation in the shadow of

A life made perfect by the shadow of

The memorial that pierces the sun.

I will stand and stare and remember

As it pours forth its floral fountain

A sympathetic tributary flood

A blood tide

To dissipate like a wave at my feet,

To dissipate dissolve disperse decompose

Into Flanders Field exalted in clay

Into Flanders Field exalted

In Flanders Field

They want us to remember

But what am I remembering,

Who must I not forget?

I never met him

You won’t forget him

I never met him

You can’t forget him

I never met him

You shouldn’t forget him

As he crawls through the wire

That tangles protects mangles resurrects

That reaches from the shadow of

Protects the beaches in the shadow of

Beyond our reach in the shadow of

The memorial that pierces the sun.

As daylight fades, the lights come up,

The colours pop, shine like rain-jewelled petals,

Like glacé buds

Like patent blossom,

Like blood-soaked soil -

The only kind fertile enough for such seeds

With such ravenous needs

That six thousand strong must feed the flock

By conceding to bleed to stop the clock.

But still it rises, it rises, it rises

And it can’t be stopped why won’t it stop the names are the same the fight is not is not

It’s not over yet –

We are infected in retrospect,

Cannot forgive out of respect –

So no one surrenders in the shadow of

We keep remembering in the shadow of

A day not just of peace but

A memorial that pierces the sun.