Memorial Day Poppies are a beautiful legacy from the horrors of World War I -- The Great War, the War to End All Wars... If only...
For some years now, North Carolina has done wonderful roadside plantings -- including these poppies on a highway near me. I always stop and take pictures and wonder why I don't plant these beauties at home...
The poppies, of course, are inspired by the famous WWI poem by Lt. Col. John McRae.
(There's a touching story about the poem's creation HERE.)
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.
I wonder how many seeing the poppies know where Flanders or Ypres were...
The poppies were blowing in the wind on the day I stopped to photograph them.
So fragile, so beautiful, so quickly gone -- like our little lives.