Poppies are in abundance here now, thriving on the almost daily fog and rain that we’ve been getting. Red poppies have come to symbolize the blood shed by soldiers in battle and often are used to memorialize such soldiers or veterans in general.
There are several theories about the origin of the poppy’s soldier remembrance tradition. The leading one appears to be that it began after publication of the popular and poignant poem “In Flanders Fields,” by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. He was a Canadian physician and poet who reportedly wrote the poem while he was serving in a field hospital on the front lines during World War I in Flanders (northern Belgium).
The short poem, which begins and ends with images of poppies blowing among the many rows of grave-marking crosses, is quite moving. If you want to read it, click this: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47380/in-flanders-fields
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 11, 2023.)