{"id":1207,"date":"2011-09-11T10:24:40","date_gmt":"2011-09-11T17:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/?p=1207"},"modified":"2011-09-11T10:44:57","modified_gmt":"2011-09-11T17:44:57","slug":"little-white-crosses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/11\/little-white-crosses\/","title":{"rendered":"Little White Crosses"},"content":{"rendered":"

LITTLE WHITE CROSSES<\/span><\/p>\n

Little white crosses, mile after mile<\/p>\n

Stark little crosses without a smile<\/p>\n

The sky and the soil are the colour of lead<\/p>\n

And the poppies are red: blood-red<\/p>\n

Little white crosses in clinging grey sod,<\/p>\n

Most of them marked, \u201cKnown only to God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mile after mile, our acres of Dead<\/p>\n

Grow little white crosses, and poppies blood-red.<\/p>\n

Poor little crosses without a smile<\/p>\n

Brave little crosses, mile after mile<\/p>\n

Each holding tight to its near little plot<\/p>\n

And all of them saying \u201cYou forgot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The armies of crosses, march through the years<\/p>\n

Enlisting more crosses, bitterness, tears<\/p>\n

Sad little crosses, mile after mile<\/p>\n

Stern little crosses without a smile<\/p>\n

Under a sky the colour of lead<\/p>\n

Smothered by poppies blood-red<\/p>\n

All dreams, ideals, all love left to rot<\/p>\n

By we who remember so much, and forgot<\/p>\n

Once-a-year plastic poppies, prayers, and tears<\/p>\n

Mean nothing at all to those miles of lost years.<\/p>\n

We must simply decide to honour, or not<\/p>\n

That which they died for, which we forgot<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t need fake flowers in Flanders\u2019s grey sod<\/p>\n

They\u2019re the world\u2019s greatest gardeners, those \u201cKnown only to God\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing real poppies, mile after mile<\/p>\n

And little white crosses without a smile<\/p>\n

If the crosses keep marching, year after year<\/p>\n

What worth our gesture of poppy and tear?<\/p>\n

What cost our glory? What price our smiles?<\/p>\n

How many crosses? How many miles?<\/p>\n

I stand by the grave of a young Irish boy;<\/p>\n

A \u201cSkin\u201d from Dungannon perhaps, or the Moy:<\/p>\n

The cross says that only God knows, do WE care<\/p>\n

As we plant plastic poppies, and bombs, over there?<\/p>\n

I envy his dying knowing what for<\/p>\n

In the carnage he knew was \u201cA war to end war.\u201d<\/p>\n

I am knee-high in poppies and foul Flanders\u2019s mud,<\/p>\n

But the stench in the air is of fresh Ulster blood.<\/p>\n

Let us remember the mile after mile<\/p>\n

Of little white crosses without a smile<\/p>\n

Rain-beaten crosses over our Dead<\/p>\n

Under skies the colour of lead.<\/p>\n

While we remember, we must not forget<\/p>\n

That we are spilling their blood even yet!<\/p>\n

For \u201cIrish,\u201d or \u201cUlster\u201d is only a name,<\/p>\n

And shame on the one puts the other to shame<\/p>\n

—————-<\/p>\n

Helene Nixon, 1973<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LITTLE WHITE CROSSES Little white crosses, mile after mile Stark little crosses without a smile The sky and the soil are the colour of lead And the poppies are red: blood-red Little white crosses in clinging grey sod, Most of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-troubles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1207"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1218,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions\/1218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}