While in Belgium, Part 1

It is amazing how Literature can come to life when you stand in the place where the author stood as they wrote and see what they saw as they reflected on their life. While taking a trip to Belgium, my classmates and I saw Flander's Field where John McCrae wrote his war poem:

"In Flander's Field"


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.

  Now, in order to gain perspective, allow me to illustrate. Here is where McCrae would have been sitting, on the top of the bunker like Aid Station he worked at as a Medic:

And here is the field full of what would have been the crosses of the dead he'd be looking at. They are now replaced with headstones, and there are many. Poppies are also used as a symbol of remembrance, and they would have likely have been everywhere. Poppies grow in areas of upturned earth, (like what shells and burying dead would have produced) and I'm told they really like iron enriched soil, (think about all the blood on the ground). Now try reading the poem again... does it feel or mean anything different now?



"In Flander's Field"


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.

~John McCrae, 1915