*Jun 26 2026 | In Flanders Field by John McCrae

In Flanders Fields

By John McCrae

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.

>1 hamlet61: That is an interesting choice, Matt. Famous, historic, well-written, but yet not just a little uncontroversial.

Serendipitous, as well. At least it is for me as I just binge-watched the first season of The Village which is about a small English village and all the socio-economic changes that were going on during that time, not the least of which included the impact of sending off so many of their young men to that war and the various outcomes for the families because of it.

I always struggle with the concept of patriotism, often fraught with manipulation by those who will clearly benefit without sacrifice. At the same time I acknowledge there have been times in history clearly when war was protection from aggressive forces.

Seems odd that we are so fascinated by the possibility of contact with possible extraterrestrial life forms when we have such a bad record of understanding or cooperating with others of our own species. Heck, we don't even have a good track record of understanding other species on our own planet, even.

Maybe that's all too much and too muddled for this poem which was meant to be gratitude to fallen soldiers who gave their innocence, health, often their lives in order to protect their homeland. And ultimately asking others to do the same.

What are your thoughts about it?

Welcome back!

And thank you.

Oddly, I think the only solution to human war on earth speaks to your point: humans find an alien life form, and they unite because they hate them more.

I suggest The Nature of Prejudice by Gordon Allport. It was the book that gave me the idea. Human in groups and out groups.

One more: Patriotism to me is the ability to participate in a nation-state; criticize; change it; and survive
(Oh! that sounds poetic)

For good or ill, I always have thoughts. That is why never sleep.

Glad to hear form you again

--Matt

I have been reading some of Wilfred Owen's poetry recently, and am somewhat in that frame of mind as I read this.

I love how the larks are "still bravely singing,". There is something so poignant about that, as there about the simplicity of the line "loved and were loved." I am thinking about who those soldiers loved; is it their wives or lovers, parents, or is it each other? It reminds me of some of the ideas Wilfred Owen presents, as he writes of how the love that bound soldiers was a greater love than any romance in poems like 'Greater Love' where he writes:
"Red lips are not so red
as the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure."

and later...

"Heart, you were never hot,
Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
And though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not."

Similar to 'Greater Love', McCrae similarly explores the tragic love and comradery of the dead, pretty explicitly in the line ."We are the Dead". It hits me pretty hard, that idea of the comradery of the dead. However, McCrae's comradery of the dead does not extend to the foe, whereas in Wilfred Owen's poetry he often describes a comradery that annihilates the meaningless distinctions between ally and enemy, friend and foe and thus reveals how pointless the fighting was in the first place

Welcome back Debi. Good to hear from you. I also have not been posting much, but that's just cause I've been distracted. In reference to some of your ideas, I think that war is built on the limitations of empathy. Now, the reasons politicians, monarchs and dictators go to war are important, but they have little to do with why soldiers fight and die I think - soldiers fight and die for to protect their friends, family, and comrades. And yet so to do the enemy soldiers, and so yes war is fought as protection, but so often both sides are fighting for protection of their way of life, or at the very least that's they way it is perceived, regardless of which side (if either) is the primary aggressor. I mean, even the Nazis believed they were fighting to protect themselves and their way of life, perhaps somewhat understandably with regards to the debt they were forced into by the League of Nations, even if the threat of the Jews was in contrast completely imagined and constructed by propaganda.

So yes, I think that war is fundamentally caused by the limitations of our empathy, as we so often refuse to extend that empathy to 'the enemy', or we encouraged not to do so to protect the so called patriotic interests of the state.

>4 Interstellar_Octopus: Thank you for the welcome back! Seems like a lot of us have been distracted the last couple of months.

This is so insightful, "war is fundamentally caused by the limitations of our empathy."

And yet, the structure of war and warmongers, is that reliance on soldiers' empathy (limited to their "side"). How odd, right?

Speaking of that lark line, when I look at pictures from war's destruction, I always think about the Nature it has also destroyed, and wonder how the trees, birds, beasts suffer too. Their homes, their food, their comrades fall too.