Pulling Weeds for Grandad

We were pulling weeds for grandad, on a bright and sunny day,
hunting down the cabbage rows, a mix of work and play:
we’d feed the chickweed to the chickens, thread the daisies into chains,
then get stung by little nettles, find a dock to soothe our pains;
there were pansies, fumitory, shepherd’s purse and pimpernel,
and clocks on dandelions which we blew but didn’t tell,
and at the end of one long row a poppy, bright and red
stood proud among the cabbages close by the rhubarb bed.
I reached to pull it out, but then my grandad raised his hand:
“No, let the poppy stay there, lad - for in another land,
amid the mud and waste and blood, all those long years ago,
when all around was dark and drear I saw the poppies blow.
Their red stands for the sacrifice of those who died too young,
the sweethearts left unmarried and the love songs left unsung.
I’m lucky, I came through it all, I’m here to tell the tale,
but I will not forget those days when all our hopes were frail,
nor friends who fell there at my side, who never made it home.
So wherever I’ve been working, and whatever roads I roam,
I’ll never pull a poppy up, I’ll always let it grow,
for the poppies on the battlefields those many years ago.”