Lost boys

In ranks they lie as once they stood
shrouded by the clinging mud.
marked by poppies, bright as blood,
the boys who went to war.

Nothing grows where once they lay.
No birds sing- no children play,
only old men mark the day
that young boys went to war.

In ranks they lie, as once they stood,
marked by a simple cross of wood.
Six feet of ground, paid for in blood
by boys who went to war.