At the Crossroads of the Roses.

At the Crossroads of the Roses — (Le Carrefour des roses)

— for Francis Ledwidge, Irish Poet Soldier, blown to bits on July 31st. 1917 age 29., near Boezinge Wood, north of Ypres in Flanders. He was carrying out road repairs near the cross road of the roses — he had once been a road Ganger with Meath County Council. The rains had been heavy all day, and while Ledwidge was drinking tea, resting in a mud hole with his comrades, a shell exploded alongside, killing the poet and five others. A chaplain who knew him, Father Devas, arrived soon after, and recorded "Ledwidge killed, blown to bits." The Welsh poet Hedd Wyn, age 30, was killed on the same day and is also buried near Ledwidge (Artillery Wood Cemetery). Nearly 750,000 soldiers were killed in the trenches surrounding Ypres. In the late 1990s a group of Belgian archaeologists (who called themselves 'The Diggers') unearthed whole trench systems, where every artefact connected with life at the front was uncovered. In the process the remains of more than 120 soldiers were found; British, French and German. None were ever identified, which is hardly surprising given the nature of the battlefield at Boezinge and the fact that many were found in No Man's Land itself. The area is now covered by an industrial site.
Francis Ledwidge’s Memorial is near the Crossroads of the Roses.

“Even the Rose that blooms on youth’s red lips Must soon blow down the road all roses go.” — from Francis Ledwidge’s poem, June.

It was in Boezinge in July, The order came for men to die, The rains poured down, you could not see, As you were resting, drinking tea.

The Padre’s words were: “blown to bits”— In brutal war a life soon flits — For death had called that afternoon. And in that hole six bodies strewn.

Chorus — They buried you among the trees The ganger, and the men you pleased: They served the poet, and the fool, Each signed for death’s unbending rule. And O so many met their death, They’re finding bits in Boezinge, yet: The plough’s bright cleavage of the sod Reveals surprise to their own god.

In Boezinge’s flat lands where you lie The flowers of summer dance and sigh; And here we weep our loss, your words That echo through that ghostly wood.

Chorus — I wonder Francis, if you knew The day that Death would come for you, And if you heard the bittern cry Above the shells that strafed the sky. — © Frank Callery, Sunday May 28th. 2017