We’re really looking forward to Memorial Day this year. It’s the first unofficial weekend of summer. We dust off the grills and barbecues. It’s finally safe to put away the snow shovels. And this year it will be extra special because many of us can finally be in the same place with family and friends again.
Memorial Day is a hybrid holiday. It combines happiness to be together and have fun, with enormous gratitude and respect for the women and men who gave up all the rest of their days for us.
The Team is sneaking off for the rest of the week, and of course because it’s a holiday, we want to share a poem to commemorate the day. We always like to feature poems by women, but this time we leave you with a classic by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae (1872-1918), a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist, soldier, and surgeon during World War I.
In Flanders Fields, By John McCrae
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.