Les Coquelicots en Provence

After winter, we all look forward to the arrival of spring. Even without a calendar, one knows the month of May has arrived in Provence when the poppies, 'coquelicots' en francais, pop up! We see the field or corn poppy in any number of places around Aix; in fields, along roadsides and even growing in between cobbles on the sunny side of a medieval, village street. This bright-red flower has been used to symbolize sleep, think of Dorothy and the Tin Man going through the poppy field in their way to Oz, and in Greco-Roman myths to symbolize death and resurection. Perhaps the most famous literary use of the poppy was John McCrae's World War I poem, In Flanders Fields.







A doctor serving in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps during the war, McCrae reportedly wrote the poem on May 3, 1915, after witnessing the death of his friend, Lt. Alexis Helmer, on the front line. The poem appeared for the first time in Punch magazine on December 8, 1915.

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.

Today, throughout the world, the poppy is very much a symbol of that and other wars and those that fought in them. Looking at this field, I saw in it a likeness to an impressionist painting and was deeply reminded of McCraes' words "In Flanders fields the poppies blow..."





P.S. Susie just asked me to proof her blog entry. Uncanny comments as this is Memorial Day weekend and she hadn't put two and two together yet! Nick

PPS...and one more thing. This week, I have been reading "Currahee! A Screaming Eagle at Normany" by Donald Burgett. It is his look back at WWII and he describes the nonstop, nightmarish fighting across "body-strewn fields, over enemy-held hedgerows, through blown-out towns and devastating forests". The book captures a 'baptism by fire' of young Private Burgett, his comrades and the new 101st Airborne Division as they enter Normandy and become a legend of war. Concurrently, I have even been rewatching the fabulous series "A Band of Brothers" which so effectively documents visually that amazing time in world history. Nick