As I write this, two wars wage and a 20-gun salute is underway near my condo in Toronto in beautiful Queen’s Park to commemorate the fallen in past wars.
Canadians wear poppies every year in memory of those who sacrificed their lives since the Great War or First World War. A disproportionate number of Canadians served and died in that war, and subsequent ones. And the poppy has become the symbol of sacrifice because of a beautiful and famous poem written in 1915 by a Canadian physician who served during that hideous war, John MacRae. It is called “In Flander’s Field” and, quite frankly, every time I read it, I cry.
In Flanders Fields
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.
It's a justly famous poem. The Great War certainly produced some great poets. At the Cenotaph in Whitehall today, 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, it's "They shall not grow old, As we that are left grow old, Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn, At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We shall remember them" And Rupert Brooke's 1914 take on English exceptionalism: "If I should die think only this of me, that there's some corner of the foreign field that is forever England....in hearts at peace, under an English heaven." (He died in 1915) Then Wilfred Owens' 1917 poem (died 1918): "If you could hear at every jolt the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs....my dear, you would not say with such high zest, to schoolboys ardent for some desperate glory, the old lie: Dulce et Decorum Est, Pro Patria Mori."
As do I, but we are a country of immigrants, and it’s rather much to expect new Canadians from afar to actually understand. Or for that matter for gen z, x..whatever ...making Nov 11 a holiday seems wrong...it’s one more long weekend...and signals start of Christmas junk..anyone bubbling on about “they died for..” is wrong...they went out of duty, out of youth seeking adventure....not for “freedom” or some such BS..those who were in the line of fire came back changed, many broken...my grandfather shot himself unable to cope..my great uncle was never able to function, my father with only one good leg and unable to share in my growing up...for all the heroes- the real ones were those who peed themselves yet still did their jobs..so, I remember..but I can’t expect others to, nor make it some political farce ..