The Poppies Grow.

The second Sunday of November is UK's Remembrance Day, whereby people commemorate those who perished in World War One. A way to notice it coming is when you see artificial poppies pinned onto their coats. Poppies are a symbol of death mainly because they grow by graveyards, by the underworld river in Greek Mythology and I only learnt that they have a relation to war through Isaac Rosenberg's Break of Day in the Trenches.

Nonetheless, the first time poppies are used to connote war and its devastation is through the World War One poem below.

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.

~In Flanders Field, by John McCrae~

I'm off to do some reading now. Have a great day!