Poppies

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

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.

(more)

Not a stick or tree or blade of grass was left in the fields, but in the spring, the poppies bloomed over the torn earth of the battlefields.

More on poppies and remembrance. Well written and informative.

Epitaph

S.J. Robinson

They tried:
what more can be asked
By us who in their glorious freedom bask?
So we must fight and, willing,
face the task
So they,
our forebears,
may take rest at last

Now Poppies Grow
S.J. Robinson

Here, once, a soldier died in stalemate slow
Now where he fell, bright poppies grow.
Once horror reigned and death was rife,
Missing comrades haunted soldier's life

The shells, the noise, the battle throng,
A whistle foretold sleep eternal long;
For, over the top, he rejoined dead friends
In that sweet peace which never ends

Eighteen or twenty, maybe less,
Soldier's age of death, upon that crest.
A wasteful loss, a generation flown -
There, lie many, still Unknown

A chilling hush fills the mourning air
They rest here, safe, without age or care
Beneath long grass, under air so still
Peace hides their graves, in trench, on hill

The most worthy monument? A poppied field.
To the carnage? The Iron Harvest yield
But from where the birds in war have flown,
The ghosts of Ypres and Somme live on...

A wonderful gallery of photographs from the Australian War Memorial. I must return there, I haven't been for over 25 years.

(Photograph at the top of this post from here. Worth a look!)

Update:
From Pogs

The US Patriot Post issued this today, an excellent reminder:

It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus [or community] organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier, who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

-- Father Dennis Edward
O'Brian, USMC