The fields and roadside verges in the countryside around Cartagena, Spain, are splashed with red as poppies wave in the breeze.
The beautiful poppies are the brightest and deepest red and stand out strongly against the other wild flowers which are nearly all yellow, with a few purples thrown in. The poppies appear now, just before the heat of summer and are a gorgeous splash of new colour.
For many people, poppies are associated with remembrance, even though we are in April and Remembrance Day falls on the second Sunday of November. Originally it was celebrated at the 11th hour, of the 11th day of the 11th month, and was known as Armistice Day, as that was the day the armistice ending the First World War was signed.
John McCrae, then a Major, of the Canadian Army, was a surgeon attached to the First Field Artillery Brigade at the Battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915. In a break from treating wounded soldiers, he sat exhausted on the back of an ambulance. The day before, May 2, he had buried his friend and former student, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer who was killed by a shell burst.
Major McCrae spent five minutes writing on his pad the following poem, In Flanders Field.
In Flanders Fields the poppies bow
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 or quarrel with the foe:
To you from falling 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 field.
Not satisfied with his words Major McCrae threw his poem away but it was picked up by another officer and published in Punch on December 8, 1915.
Who can look at a poppy without remembering?
***
©Phillip Bruce 2009.
The beautiful poppies are the brightest and deepest red and stand out strongly against the other wild flowers which are nearly all yellow, with a few purples thrown in. The poppies appear now, just before the heat of summer and are a gorgeous splash of new colour.
For many people, poppies are associated with remembrance, even though we are in April and Remembrance Day falls on the second Sunday of November. Originally it was celebrated at the 11th hour, of the 11th day of the 11th month, and was known as Armistice Day, as that was the day the armistice ending the First World War was signed.
John McCrae, then a Major, of the Canadian Army, was a surgeon attached to the First Field Artillery Brigade at the Battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915. In a break from treating wounded soldiers, he sat exhausted on the back of an ambulance. The day before, May 2, he had buried his friend and former student, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer who was killed by a shell burst.
Major McCrae spent five minutes writing on his pad the following poem, In Flanders Field.
In Flanders Fields the poppies bow
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 or quarrel with the foe:
To you from falling 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 field.
Not satisfied with his words Major McCrae threw his poem away but it was picked up by another officer and published in Punch on December 8, 1915.
Who can look at a poppy without remembering?
***
©Phillip Bruce 2009.
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