Poppies, Grass, and Flowers on Armistice Day

Armistice Day commemorates the armistice that ended The Great War at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. The Great War was not called World War I until World War II. Not only did they not know an even greater war was coming; what we call World War I, they called “the war to end all wars.” The seeds of World War II were sown in that armistice and the hope of the end of wars vanished. In light of that reality and the recognition of a perpetual veteran population, the name of Armistice Day was changed to Veterans Day in 1954.

The tradition of wearing poppies to honor veterans traces to the Flanders Fields where battles were fought in Belgium and France. The graves of 368 US military personnel are in the Flanders Field American Cemetery and Memorial. The poem by Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae is a lament for those who died there.

 

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.

·          

Carl Sandberg’s 1918 poem Grass includes these same battles with others in its own ironic lament.

 

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work—

                                          I am the grass; I cover all.

 

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

                                          What place is this?

                                          Where are we now?

 

                                          I am the grass.

                                          Let me work.

 

 

Pete Seeger’s 1962 song Where Have All the Flowers Gone echoes the theme of flowers and the cycles of war.

 

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them every one
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

 

Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone for husbands every one
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

 

Where have all the husbands gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the husbands gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the husbands gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

 

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

 

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers every one
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

 

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them every one
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?