The Little White Flowers--By G. Louis Heath--United States

The Little White Flowers

Pine trees whisper to each other across a

meadow of tiny, white, star-shaped flowers,

gently bending in the breeze. Troops mass;

phalanxes face each other, their weapons

at the ready. They trounce the flowers into

turbid slush, to draw lines with young blood.

(There are more artistic ways to draw bright

lines, but we never taught them.)  A new

government has sprouted in the blood bled

by these men. We today set their tombstones

tall in eternal marble to honor their blood

sacrifice, decanted on this field of glory. We

shall never forget these brave men, whose names

begin from A to Z, and their ultimate sacrifice.

Let us not forget, on this grassy mall this glorious

bright, blue spring day, how much we owe them.

The green lives. The life force still reigns supreme.

And the blood in this soil is crying in the whispering

pines, bring back to us the little, white flowers. Bring

back those little, white flowers, swaying in the breeze.

G. Louis Heath, Ph.D., Berkeley, 1969, is Emeritus Professor, Ashford University, Clinton, Iowa. He enjoys reading his poems at open mics. He often hikes along the Mississippi River, stopping to work on a poem he pulls from his back pocket, weather permitting. His books include Long Dark River Casino, and Redbird Prof: Poems Of A Normal U, 1969-1981. He has published poems in a wide array of journals.