The first poppy of the season bloomed in my garden on 20th March, the day of the spring equinox. Perfect, some would say, to usher in spring with a scarlet poppy. But my mood was far from celebratory. The single flower that had spread its flouncy skirt of petals in a sunny spot conjured up vistas of seas of red poppies in faraway Flanders, in Europe. A shiver went through my heart as I recalled the sobering lines of the war poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ penned by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae in 1915. McCrae was moved to write the poem after presiding over the funeral of his friend and fellow soldier Alexis Helmer, who was killed in the Second Battle of Ypres on the Western Front. Ypres was in the area straddling the Belgian provinces of West Flanders and East Flanders, and that of the French Flanders- battlefields in WWI that were commonly referred to as Flanders Fields.
The region witnessed intense fighting and heavy casualties; a staggering one million soldiers were wounded, missing or killed in action. Over half a million civilians also perished.
The bloodbath in Flanders Fields happened more than a century ago. Today my heart is grieving the ongoing carnage, the butchery being committed in the Killing Strip of Gaza. After 16 months of conflict the number of recent graves there is vying to exceed the number of buildings that are still standing intact after dense bombardment. Unlike in Flanders, no red poppies or flowering plants of any kind splash color on the gray rubble that the city has been razed to. The red poppies blooming between the crosses of graves in Flanders became symbolic of the human casualties of war: a Remembrance Poppy, an artificial flower, is worn to commemorate the victims of WWI on Remembrance Day on 11 Nov, recalling the end of hostilities in 1918.
This may be our last picture… If we are martyred, we are not just numbers, we are worlds of our own, with dreams and ambitions we want to achieve
How will we honor the dead of Gaza? Shall we fly white kites? In the last poem he had posted, Refaat Alareer- Palestinian poet who died in an IDF airstrike of northern Gaza in Dec 2023- entreats those who outlive him:
“If I must die
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze-
(…)
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
Let it bring hope
Let it be a tale”.
Like Alareer, Palestinians who are acutely aware of the fragility of their lives and anticipate their demise at any moment, are posting their photos and last wishes creating an unprecedented historical record of Murders Foretold. A young father Mohammad Jawad recently posted a photo of himself with his baby daughter and tweeted: “This may be our last picture… If we are martyred, we are not just numbers, we are worlds of our own, with dreams and ambitions we want to achieve. Do not forget us in your prayers, and keep speaking about us.”
And so it happened, that a scarlet poppy that bloomed in my garden on the first day of spring educed images and ventriloquized voices from Flanders Fields and those from Gaza, and a poem was born.
In Gaza, Where No Poppies Blow
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
Between the Gaza graves no poppies blow,
Row on row just growing mounds
Of stone and bone
Razing our place; and in the sky,
Death-dealing drones like raptors fly,
Deaf to the cries of preys below.
We are the Destined Dead. Not so long ago
We lived, dreamt hope, saw love-lit faces glow.
We held and were held, and now we lie
In nameless Gaza graves.
Pray, feel our plight! Take up our fight with the foe:
To you from falling hands we throw
The torch: keep it ablaze; carry it high.
If you betray our trust- us who die-
We shall haunt you. Our blood
Will never bloom in poppies
Between the Gaza graves.