Flanders Fields.

My Canadian partner left this poem on my desk to remind me that at 11:00 tomorrow Candadians will mark the 85th anniversary of the end of the Great War.

In Flanders Fields

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.

85 years is not such a long time. My grandfather was a twentyish enlisted man in the United States Navy at the time soon to return to Brooklyn to marry my grandmother. At times like this, I wonder where he was on November 11, 1918? What did he think about that day? We have a picture of him in Paris taken in 1918, so he was there on Armistice Day. [By the way, I note that William Sulik's grandfather was in the vicinity of my grandfather 85 years ago, albeit apparently on dry land.

Here is an interesting site about John McCrae's poem, including this bit of information:

The most asked question is: why poppies?

Wild poppies flower when other plants in their direct neighbourhood are dead. Their seeds can lie on the ground for years and years, but only when there are no more competing flowers or shrubs in the vicinity (for instance when someone firmly roots up the ground), these seeds will sprout.

There was enough rooted up soil on the battlefield of the Western Front; in fact the whole front consisted of churned up soil. So in May 1915, when McCrae wrote his poem, around him poppies blossomed like no one had ever seen before.

Here is the handwritten original of McCrae's poem, which he wrote during a short rest from his duties as surgeon.

And as long as we're on the subject of Great War poetry, let's not forget Rudyard Kipling's Epitaphs of the War. Here's one I've always liked for its segue from the ridiculous to the profound:

THE REFINED MAN

I was of delicate mind. I stepped aside for my needs,
Disdaining the common office. I was seen from afar and killed....
How is this matter for mirth? Let each man be judged by his deeds.
I have paid my price to live with myself on the terms that I have willed.

And, a final one for Penner and the Canadians for whom tomorrow is properly Armistice Day:

TWO CANADIAN MEMORIALS

I

We giving all gained all.
Neither lament us nor praise.
Only in all things recall,
It is Fear, not Death that slays.

II

From little towns in a far land we came,
To save our honour and a world aflame.
By little towns in a far land we sleep;
And trust that world we won for you to keep.

Update: More somber Great War poetry is offered by The OmbudsGod.

On the same subject, here is more Kipling:

A Dead Statesman

I could not dig: I dared not rob;
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

But, in this year of conflict, we also shouldn't forget that this attitude induced France and England to appease and procrastinate and, in turn, was a cause of the infinitely greater evils of Nazi Germany.