A single red poppy in a Cotswold field.
Shot in June 2023 on 35mm Kodak Portra with my Nikon F100. Processed by Photovision.
It’s November 11th, Remembrance Day, which is why I thought I’d share a photo of a poppy photographed in a Cotswold field. I had never seen red poppies until my first time walking through the Cotswolds. It was September, so there were only a smattering of poppies left blowing in a farmer’s field, but they immediately reminded me of the poem all Canadian schoolchildren memorized when I was growing up. "In Flanders Fields”, was penned by lieutenant-colonel John McCrae of the Canadian Expeditionary Force while serving as a surgeon on the battlefield at Ypres, Belgium, during WWI. The poem has become a fixture of Remembrance Day ceremonies in the century following, and every year our family reads or recites it together on November 11.
Since my first poppy encounter, I’ve had the opportunity to take in full scenes of poppy fields that stretch out towards the horizon, (visit the Cotswolds in late June for this impressive sight) and every time, the Last Post plays in my mind and I can’t help but recite McCrae’s solemn poem.
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.
— John McCrae
In 2025, my eldest daughter Lauren, inspired by McCrae’s poem, wrote her own poem to commemorate the lives lost in service and the legacy of ‘In Flanders Fields’. You can listen to her read it HERE.
