Taking a moment to consider the losses as well as the life we who followed gained. Remembering in gratitude.
image (C) 2021 Hilary Farmer
Remember
poppies
perennial tangle …oil painting
A view of my parent’s country garden in the summer. I love the lush density of the flowers and the richness of the colours! …and yes, I know that these flowers are not all perennials but they come up every year and that’s perennial enough for me!
Tom’s poem!
A tangle deep, wrapped in enigma
growing wild without the stigma
of replanting year by year:
perennials that know no fear
of frost nor snow nor deer nor rabbits
growing wild has been their habit
since a time long out of mind
toward the sun they turn and climb
over each and reaching high
growing wild beneath the sky
image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe
today’s doodle – West coast poppies
Today’s quick doodle was based on photos I took of some poppies along the sea wall in Victoria this summer. What a wonderful colour they were – so vibrant and cheerful!
UPDATE: New poem from Tom takes an interesting approach to the viewer of these poppies…
I drifted lonely in a daze
though silent streets and empty crowds
befuddled by morphia’s haze
my ragged head in fluffy clouds
of chemical-contented warm
that wrapped my skinny, sickly form
when what should catch my glassy eyes
but the source of all my thoughts
a patch of burnished poppies flies
its petaled flags burnt-orange hot
that touched some smoldering waste within
this sack of bones and punctured skin
arresting now my downward drift
so that I could contemplate
the passing beauty of this gift:
a poison flower that I should hate
for though it took away my pain
it left me broken, halt and lame
but in that moment it returned
the certainty of something more:
a beauty in the world that burned
within my bruised and beaten core
which was enough to turn the tide
while poppies in the fields abide.
Copyright (C) 2012 Tom Radcliffe
image (cc) 2012 Hilary Farmer
Remember…
A field of poppies… inspired by Monet’s Poppies Blooming. I made some modifications… and of course, not oil painting! Although I did this doodle about two months ago, it was always intended to be for Remembrance Day. We are even working it into the flow for Songs of Albion.
UPDATE: New sonnet for Remembrance Day from Tom – thanks!!
Behold the men who lie beneath the Earth
where now the bright red splashes of the flowers
belie those times when once a human’s worth
was measured by the armies of the Powers
who needed cannon fodder for the fields
they sowed with arty, gas and Maxim fire,
where boys were carried homeward homeward on their shields
but never quite escaped the mud and mire.
Behold the peaceful meadow, poppy-clad,
where ghosts are never quiet in the night,
beneath the autumn sun where once the mad
convinced the world that war was something right.
Behold the dead, the boys who never age:
Whose ghosts won’t rest until it’s peace we wage.
Copyright (C) 2011 Tom Radcliffe
image (cc) 2011 Hilary Farmer
Green Tea Doodles 
