Poppies in Flanders Field: Dr. McGrae will be honored with two statues

I recently wrote a post of “Poppies in Flanders Field” mentioning Dr. John McGrae’s (a Canadian doctor served in WWI in the Western Front) famous poem.  He’ll be honored with two statues: one in Ottawa and one in his home town.

It is of interest that we also read about poppies in the first chapter of Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (the story of WWI).

“The wind plays with our hair; it plays with our words and thoughts.  The three boxes stand in the midst of the glowing, red field-poppies.”

“It might easily have happened that we should not be sitting here on our boxes today.  It came dame near to that.  And so everything is new and brave, red poppies and good food, cigarettes and summer breeze.”

The following are the poignant stanzas of McGrae’s  In Flanders Fields:

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.