WAR Poem: “In the Crater Garden”, by Melissa Kerstein-Peeples

I was born in a hush of dew and light,
Where bees hummed secrets in dawn’s quiet flight.
My petals once caught sun like wine,
And danced with wind in patterns divine.

But the boots came, thousands, bold.
They marched with thunder, fire, and cold.
The soil split, cried out in dread,
Roots like mine tangled with the dead.

Smoke stitched gray across the skies,
Ash fell soft as lullabies.
A crater bloomed where daisies lay
And poppies, once red, have gone all gray.

I drank from puddles laced with lead,
My sisters wilted, dreaming dead.
The rain now burns. The worms have fled.
The trees wear shrapnel leaves instead.

Yet still I rise on slender spine,
A foolish flame, a fragile sign.
I bloom in spite, not unaware
A whispered grief perfumed in air.

Would you plant me where bombs once fell?
Would you breathe me in, my warning smell?
For I have seen the cost of men
And I will never dance again.