Remembrance

Today was Remembrance Sunday, when wreathes of paper poppies are laid at cenotaphs throughout the U.K. commemorating those who died in the First and Second World Wars. I spoke to a man at church this morning who has attended the Remembrance service at the Queen's University cenotaph for the past 60 years. It is always sobering to see how long the lists are on the memorials in each village, church, school, etc. The Ulster Division and the Irish Division were at the forefront of some of the bloodiest battles of the First World War, including the Somme. I was in a museum in Bangor where the exhibits included lists of families that had lost two, three, four, and five sons in the First World War. Entire communities were decimated. Families arranged the medals and government letters they received in a particular way using shadow boxes. So odd to see a life captured in such a way.

The symbol of the poppy originated in this 1915 poem:

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.
11-8