Poppies?
You are not transient.
You do not droop and fall.
Immutable
You stand tall and proud.
Sanguine
blood red,
redolent of beauty
bleeding from the tower -
yet your pooling does not soak into the earth.
For you there is no muddy bed.
No death for you,
No sharing in their lot.
They are gone.
They have fallen.
Their blood has fed the earth.
Dust to dust
mutable
contingent
mortal
They have perished.
A travesty perhaps.
But rather,
in your unchanging
blood-red
sanguine
beauty -
You are the memory.
We will remember them.
Poppies.