November | 2014 | thetattooedgardener

A post I had written two years ago about the Flanders Poppy and also my direct connection to ‘World War I’.

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.

A poem written by John McCrae, after a close friend was killed in the Flanders area of Belgium and buried in a grave marked with a plain wooden cross at the second Battle of Ypres in 1915.

John McCrae died of pnuemonia on the 28th January 1918 in Boulogne, France. He was a doctor, soldier…

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