My Tears Dropped On The Grave, The Next Day A Poppy Grew

My Tears Dropped On The Grave, The Next Day A Poppy Grew

My tears dropped on the grave,

No one saw them fall,

The soil took them without a sound,

Dark earth swallowing grief.

I spoke your name into the wind,

It did not answer me back,

Only the cold stone listening,

Only the weight of goodbye.

All night the ground kept silent,

Holding what I could not hold,

Keeping what death had claimed,

Keeping you beyond my reach.

The next day a poppy grew,

Red as a wound still open,

Thin stem standing where I broke,

Bright against the grey.

I did not plant it,

I did not ask for a sign,

But there it was, unashamed,

Alive where you were not.

Now I kneel without trembling,

Because something rose from sorrow,

My tears fed more than despair,

They fed a red defiance.