In the year of the dragon
we saw spring
turning ashes of war into battlefield green;
we listened to wheels
from the gravedigger’s wagon
drowning in nightingale’s song;
we slept overwhelmed
in apple-bloom scent.
In the year of the dragon
we dared to forget.
Ball’s Bluff Battlefield
A second Quadrille for De at dVerse the word is still dragon.
Also linking to the Tuesday Platform at toads
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June 30, 2019
Björn Rudbergs writings 
OH. Those last lines are just stunning. Wonderful.
Dragons forget. Another poem that flies.
This is spellbinding Bjorn! Loved it…
Deeply felt and the imagery is stunning.
Great tribute …
Your third stanza is killer; haunting. I like the idea that Spring, that life can heal over scars (everywhere perhaps except in Chernobyl.
I love that you grasped victory from the jaws of defeat!
That’s great. It reminds me of a Tolkein novel, “The Hobbit, in which Frodo and company attack a dragon named Smaug
A haunting, yet beautiful poem.
I have decided you are a wizard at creating dark poetry. It seems unsettling yet, I must read more.
I love you connected the civil war to the year of the dragon. So many unsung because they are buried in an unmarked grave. The apple scent like the bittersweet of eternal rest, of drowning in song. Very potent.
Nice what that year celebrated
Much💖love
How well this tells of the feeling after war or conflict of any kind, prompting the question, “Was it really worth the cost?”
It’s lovely how you have created a relationship between the year of the dragon and the time of peacefulness — “we dared to forget” is such a heartrending sentiment. I also loved the image and sound of wheels drowning in a nightingale’s song.
I don’t think I know specifically to which war you may be referring to (the tragedy is we have had so many of them), but the piece made me think about how in old stories dragons sometimes represented the land and when a ruler was in harmony with that land, his reign would be just and there would be peace. Whatever year this is now, it’s certainly not a year where there’s an abundance of wise leaders or harmony with the land. In that sense, it feels very appropriate to name such halcyon times after a mythological creature.
I really enjoyed the intermixing of death and rebirth here. The dragon, an immortal creature that continues through all, and while the gravedigger’s wagon roles on to the sound of the nightingale, it is simply paving the way for spring and apple-blossom sent. So death is being mourned and cleared away to make space for the rebirth of spring. A new year as it were.
I love this poem, Bjorn, being born in a Year of the Dragon myself.
I love the return of apple blossom and green, but the war devastates and I fear another ravage of dragon fire.
we slept overwhelmed –very nice analogy of death…one to ponder today…bkm
“The wheels of the gravedigger’s wagon” would haunt with mournful sound…rather focus on nightingales’ song.
Marvelous poem Bjorn.
I think sometimes a year of the Dragon is necessary for sanity, at least for those of us who have imaginative minds.
Cie from Team Netherworld
“we listened to wheels
from the gravedigger’s wagon
drowning in nightingale’s song;”
Oh man! That’s so good!
spring is not to be denied… life goes on. But we must remember…
Great, Bjorn. I could sustitute names and we would have the causes for the mess we in the US are in today.
..
The eternity of dragons, well captured!