'In Flanders Fields' by John McCrae

[RandySF]

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.

[tavernier]

1. I think of that poem

whenever I see poppies.

[bahboo]

2. never fails to get me...

[Diamond_Dog]

3. Chokes me up every time.

[cilla4progress]

4. War.

What can be said that hasn't already. Stupid. Evil. Violence perpetuating violence. Should be inhuman, but sadly, isn't.

[Jerry2144]

5. It always makes me wish

That “Love thy neighbor” were etched in stone somewhere.

Why would I really want to hurt some average citizen of another land? We all want about the same thing, to love and be loved, to live relatively free from fear, to have Safe home and enough to eat.

[Hekate]

6. Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori. May they all rest in peace.

Dulce et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen - 1893-1918

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

[Staph]

7. In the summer of 2001,

I was on a European concert tour with my university alumni band. I took my then 78-year-old mother along as my roommate.

When we reached the area of Ypres and the battlefields there, we had a chance to see the Menin Gate and attend the Last Post ceremony there, held every evening since July 2, 1928, to honor the soldiers of the British Empire who fought and died there.

When the ceremony ended, Mom recited In Flanders Field, from memory. She'd learned it in high school, back in the late 1930s.

I wish I had her memory!


(For more on the Last Post, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menin_Gate#%22Last_Post%22_ceremony)