This week, I didn’t walk down to the river. I cycled—past wild grasses and spring flowers, along a path blooming in full voice. The breeze was soft, the colours vibrant, and I let the camera do the listening for me.
The video ends with two poppies swaying side by side in the wind. It wasn’t planned, but it felt like a gift.
Poppies have always meant something deeper to me. Their fragile strength. Their persistence. Their association with remembrance—especially of those who died in war—goes back to the First World War, when they bloomed across the battlefields of Belgium and northern France.
The famous poem In Flanders Fields gave them their voice.
It’s the same poem that inspired the title of my first novel, In Picardy’s Fields.
🎥 Watch here:
🌺 In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae (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.
Every Canadian kid learned ´In Flander’s Field’ in school, and we recited it every Remembrance Day -Nov.11 in memory of the World War 1 and 2 Vets. The vets still sell poppies on the streets to help those who are still alive. Everyone in Canada wears them on their coats in November. We must learn from history , not repeat the same mistakes and ensure there is no World War 3! 🙏☮️🌎💜🇨🇦