Poppies

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD

(1872-1918)

Canadian Army

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

After the first world war broke the soil in Flanders (a lovely area on the border between France and Belgium) the battle fields were covered the following spring in beautiful poppies. The war disturbed the soil, the poppies took the chance to enjoy the broken ground and germinated.

You see, poppy seeds can lie fallow in untilled ground for years until the conditions are right for their survival. Once the ground is tilled (or turned up by a battle) the seeds will germinate and grow. This is one reason that they have become associated with veterans day.

These poppies are orange, and not the traditional red that has been the symbol of the veterans that we honor on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, but the red variety were hard to find in gardens. I have only pictures of the orange varieties.

They were as hard to find as the commemorative one are to find this year. Which is odd. Perhaps it is because I spent the last three Novembers in London, but I remember poppies being big on Veterans’ Day! This year, even though I looked for a poppy to wear, I could not find one to be had. I was sure that I had one from my trip to South Africa (we left poppies on the graves at Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift) but I cannot find many of the things I thought I had saved as mementos from that trip.

So orange poppies will have to do. That and the remembrance of all the veterans current and past who have fought and defended our rights and liberties for these last 232 years.

American veterans: Thank you!

Wherever you are today, I hope that you will take a moment to thank a veteran of your country!

Don Bergquist - November 11, 2008 - Lakewood, Colorado, USA