The Poppy and the Pride of Death: Interpretations on a Famous War Poem

Poppy Field in a Hollow near Giverny by Claude Monet

"Poppies have long been used as a symbol of sleep, peace, and death: sleep because of the opium extracted from them, and death because of the common blood-red color of the red poppy in particular. In Greek and Roman myths, poppies were used as offerings to the dead." [1]

"Another candidate for the psychoactive drug is an opioid derived from the poppy. The cult of the goddess Demeter may have brought the poppy from Crete to Eleusis; it is certain that opium was produced in Crete." [2]

References

[1] L. Frank Baum, Michael Patrick Hearn, The Annotated Wizard of Oz, p. 173

[2] Karl Kerenyi.Dionysos.Archetypal image of indestructible life.p 24

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]

The above poem, written by John McCrae, is one of the important war poems in history. Today, it is read aloud by veterans at remembrance ceremonies with solemn intention. The symbol and metaphor poppy, here depicted, is especially relevant for the topic of war. 

The poppy symbolizes death. "In Flander's Fields the poppies blow" would then mean that in Flander's Fields, the dead sleep in peace. The second line further supports this. The last two lines, "We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flander's Fields" emphasizes the simple metaphor of the poppy as a symbol of eternal rest, however, in this sense, the poem transcends symbolic import and represents the pride of the soldier as immortal, and sleepless in constant struggle. This is a poem to incite emotion for the dead, and where we might once believe they lay in respite from worldly cause, we are wrong. So the poem is a call to action, "Take up your quarrel with the foe". 

Further, it symbolizes how the poppy is a metaphor for the illusory nature of war, as seen from outside the veteran perspective. It uniquely distinguishes the veteran, whether alive or dead, as having an eternal place in the battlegrounds and in the generations of youth to follow. The poppy symbolizes our ignorance as non-military, as we remember the soldiers who fight on. 

And so, in the land of poppies, Afghanistan, the longest war in U.S. history wages on. Remembrance, in the metaphor of the poppy, can also fog our vision of the dead, and of their eternal struggle for rebirth in the fields where men are laid low. 

Peace author Arthur Clark once said the poppy symbolizes all who die in war, not just the soldiers of one's own nation, but every victim of war, every innocent child, mother, elder, the destroyed lives and communities. The poppy is the drug of pride, and like all drugs, while instilling disillusionment, it reveals truths of the human condition. 

_________

The inborn drug of sleep has yet to bear new visions fruitful and enduring. I travel eastward towards the desolate earth, and find matchless beauty in the serene quiet of petrified earth, the resonance of death lingers like a gentle breeze.  

Westward! (RK)

Son of the Brown Earth (RK)

Hiker's Meadow (RK)

To The Mountaintop! (RK)

The Canyon Calls Me Forth (RK)

__________

An untouched grand awe
Landed finally to rest beside the sickening mildew

Mulch-pressed nude lakes
Praised unto the natural moon

Lowering close over the beached horizon
A thirteenth name

Pleasing those raised on the island to visit their blood
Despite being insane

A malformed genetic waste
Purchasing birth

Towering over the healthy dead, grovelling
Ensnared by the angry temptress who walks entombed in mind

And spiritually blessed beyond our mundane knowledge,
She treasures the feminine life

...

To put to death philosophy, and cursed forms of common language
Now replaced with magic and divinity

Inert
Enough to overact above the spilled heights

Grandiose unity
Frontiersmen who bite at raw flesh and faint under the jeering of native rumblings

In the overcast dusk of Western humanity
Fallen alas to the bitter womb of civilization

And the crass membrane stew of our unalienable forebears
Freaking us out

Into stomachs without mouths
To feed on the juice of the horned phantom

And only lick from inside
The wounds stinging our nameless pride

excerpts from "Untouched Grande Awe"

Requiem for an End to the War in Afghanistan

Hakim – Coordinator for Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers

“…if the fundamental military strategy in Afghanistan does not change, it may lead to further killing sprees like this, and may even lead to other September11ths”

Kathy Kelly – peace activist, two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee

“I think that the United States and military officials would like to characterize the massacre as exceptional, sort of one bad apple. But I think it actually encapsulates what the United States presence in Afghanistan is all about.”

From Democracy Now! 

______

World War Two is ending. I am a Jew, barely surviving the tight noose of the final solution in Europe. In the cold forests of northeastern Europe, I and a female friend or relative (a sister or cousin) are caught in our hiding place. Alone and scrawny with a mind filed away by a flood of unspoken atrocity, a thick-mustached German soldier enters. His damaged and sick outlook feeds off our vulnerable state as he begins taunting and undressing my friend. We fight back, as he wants us alone in his depressed desperation at hearing the end of the Third Reich nears. I am only just barely able to escape out of a basement window as he pulls angrily at my clothes, my friend wrapped tightly in his unforgiving seizure. I tear a small, tea-stained map from the corner of a dusty book. As I slip away into the cold rush of the oncoming night, alone I wander with map deeply embedded in my memory, which at the moment is only able to recall with short-term accuracy, deeply inflicted with trauma. I pass through an underground warehouse department. Small newspaper vendors stand under intensely unnatural fluorescent lighting. Barefoot, I stammer through unnoticed, my clothes torn in rags. In my mind, the map of northeastern Europe pans out into an image of the terrain northeast of Germany. There is a German-named port that I head to without mind to distance.

At the port town, I feel at maximum potential. My muscles are torn in rags, cut deeper than my tattered and frayed clothes. My tongue lolls conspicuously. People begin to empathize as I flush past townspeople and open markets. The sea is stormy, but the salt fills my blood with a renewed heat of yearning. Ever closer to the seaside, I find a ship departing for America. I board as one would glide through the unconscious fading of dream. I am instilled with unknown glory. A blooming of compassion empties my weighted heart with the immense figure of creaking wood and sail. I eagerly march aboard. I am let on without question. The massive ship endeavors out of the port into the wide, light gray fish broth of a cloud-covered fog horizon. A petite elderly Chinese lady appears at the port’s edge just before the ship splits the first wave in the open sea. Inside the ship, warm faces reflect the surrounding gray mass of shape-shifting wet form. Suddenly, I see my sister. Her face and mine glow with golden recognition. A new smile forms upon our lips, as we’ve never tasted.

Across the sea, I spend spring in the solace of a city park. The daily ground breathes with comforting life, relieving. Drifting slowly with a confident gait, my first lover enjoys the fresh air, approaching. She smiles at me, looking older, more mature and at ease. This fills my heart with unending joy. Beside me, my brother’s musician friends who we’ve known since we were children play their instruments flat on the ground like a slide veena. Their music is serene and magically rejuvenating.    

______

Requiem for the 16

"A soldier
Before the end of night
16 bodies
Turn to light"

There are many reasons why I left
Now Ex-Patriot
Now divorced from birthplace

My shores?
My flag?
My history?

I extinguish all landlocked loyalty

"A soldier
Before the end of night
16 bodies
Turn to light"

Now, I have 16 more reasons
Silently, I have countless more

Where did I flee to?
Another country with a poppy war!

I'm from anywhere
Where this requiem hits home

"A soldier
Before the end of night
16 bodies
Turn to light"

Sunday, March 11 2012

The night after hearing 16 Afghan civilians (mostly women and children) are massacred by a U.S. soldier. What kind of troops are we supporting?