In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae
Written in Flanders on May 3, 1915

“ 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.”

Just before the eagerly awaited arrival of June’s tumbling bundles of joyous roses comes the Poppy. Brief the appearance ; utterly memorable forever haunting. A member of the herbaceous Papaveraceae family the poppy is legendary for its narcotic addictive ‘lotus eating’ capabilities associated with the morphia and heroin compounds in the genus Papaver somniferum.

But for many as immortalised in John McCrae’s poem, the poppy is inextricably linked to the Fields of Flanders, where young soldiers’ lives were mowed down too short in the ‘glorious’ name of war.

It is remarked that after WW1, poppies miraculously appeared in profusion everywhere on the battlefields. The standard explanation remains that the fields were barren and churned by the detritus of weaponry. As the rains poured down on the rubble and waste, acid and oxides leeched into the soil from where sprang up the miraculous sight of blood red poppies, a single thin tall stem swaying in the wind amidst the pure white crosses.

Then again maybe a seed from each lost soul lodged itself deep into the bloodstained earth to return each season. Every short lived bloom remains a gentle reminder of those who have sacrificed those who are gone too soon that war may often be futile but Nature remains unerringly perfect in marking her own forever.