The poem “In Flanders Fields” honors those who died in World War I. Written by Canadian physician Lt. Colonel John McCrae, it reads “We are the dead. Short days ago/We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow;/Loved and were loved — but now we lie/In Flanders Field.”
McCrae served in the Flanders region of Belgium and saw the horror of war, losing his close friend Alexis Helmer in the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. That tragedy inspired McCrae to write “In Flanders Fields.” He saw red flowers, called poppies, growing quickly at the grave sites of the battle. The opening of the poem reads “In Flanders Fields, the poppies grow/Between the crosses, row on row.”
