In Flanders Fields...

 

In elementary school, we had to memorize poems.  We’d write them (to practice our penmanship) then memorize them and stand before the class and recite them.  This was supposed to aid in teaching elocution, poise, and presence when speaking in public.  In Flanders Fields was one of those poems.  Who has seen the Wind? was another.  There was a third whose title I can’t remember though I remember some of the lines,  “…The goldenrod is yellow, the leaves are turning brown; The trees in apple orchards with fruit are hanging…”

In Flanders Fields stuck with me and I’ve often thought about those lines, on Memorial Day, if and when I watched a movie about war.  I'm not certain of the date it was written but I always thought of it as being composed just after the First World War, the one called the Great War and the War to End All Wars, though that, sadly, has become a misnomer/  Nevertheless, it’s appropriate to bring it out today and let it sit alongside my blog about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier:

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.