A Sea of Crimson..... Poppies.

The stunning sight of a sea of crimson poppies always takes you by surprise, causing you to catch your breath in wonder. Swathes of vivid colour stretch out before you, cloaking the most unassuming terrain or wasteland with such intensity that it is difficult to believe that this will be just a fleeting moment in time. The delicate papery petals will shortly wilt and die off, one by one, flower by flower until the whole expanse has vanished for another year.

The strange mixture of ephemerality and intensity, complexity and simplicity, forcefulness and fragility makes this phenomenon all the more incredible and it is not surprising that fields of poppies are synonymous with the battlefields of World War 1, which would bloom overnight with flowers that seemed to draw from the blood spilt on the foreign soil of France and Belgium.

Not surprising either then, that the poppy should have inspired a number of war poets, one of whom being the Canadian, John McCrae, who wrote In Flanders Fields in 1915, a few years before his own death, in 1918.

In Flanders fields the poppies grown, 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.

Dance, dance, dance... Poppies and Cornflowers...

Poppies and Cornflowers

Over lockdown, this poster below graced an ugly, non-descript electrical enclosure in the town centre and seemed to bear some beautiful yet cautionary message.

Had the music just come to an end? Were we simply left to take stock of the silence, since we had taken all for granted beforehand? Or was this a warning too late, to make the most of everything we have, and not simply to be deaf to all but the noise of materialist gain?

Perhaps it was a combination of all these things.

In fact, it was a quote from the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, and is taken from the novel Dance, dance, dance, written some 30 years ago. I haven't read this particular book - I loved South of the Border, West of the Sun - but some of its other quotes seem eerily relevant, given the current context.

Advanced capitalism has transcended itself. Not to overstate things, financial dealings have practically become a religious activity. The new mysticism. People worship capital, adore its aura, genuflect before Porsches and Tokyo land values. Worshiping everything their shiny Porsches symbolize. It's the only stuff of myth that's left in the world.    Haruki Murakami

How do we surmount what is seemingly unsurmountable?
We have to make the most of what we have around us - open our eyes beyond ourselves and our lifestyle choices - and dance.
                                              Just don’t let your feet stop.    Haruki Murakami

Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely.    Haruki Murakami,

Cascade of Poppies in Memory at Canterbury...

10,000 poppies were knitted or crocheted to create a blood-red cascade of colour that drape the walls in one of the passage-ways in Canterbury, so that people might stop and think of the thousands upon thousands of lives lost in the Great War. I do hope this is the case, but suspect many simply sweep past on their shopping quest, caught up in the flow of their material concerns, phones welded to their hands, much as myself this Saturday. However I did pause to think how strange it is that we unwittingly allow ourselves to be carried away by this frenzy of consumption - feeding our minds on the prospect of the latest fix, ever driven by this unsatiable thirst for easy entertainment and acquisition. In so doing, we no longer take stock of our lives, except to find it wanting in some respect, when we do in fact have so much to be grateful for.

                                      Aftermath - Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

    Have you forgotten yet?...
    For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
    Like traffic checked a while at the crossing of city ways:
    And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
    Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
    Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
    But the past is just the same—and War's a bloody game...
    Have you forgotten yet?...
    Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.

    Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz—
    The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
    Do you remember the rats; and the stench
    Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench—
    And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
    Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'

    Do you remember that hour of din before the attack—
    And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
    As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
    Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
    With dying eyes and lolling heads—those ashen-gray
    Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

    Have you forgotten yet?...
    Look up, and swear by the slain of the war that you'll never forget!

    March 1919.

Poppies along the Canals and Concrete...

Last day of the month again, and yet again a rush to finish off a few posts before midnight...
I have such a backlog of blog material - none of which has taken any form which is even vaguely 'postable'  - so I won't be respecting any real chronological order.

 As I was rowing a few weeks ago, I saw all these beautiful flowers and grasses along the paths and cycle tracks that run parallel to the canal. I went back to photograph them from the safety of dry land!

I was particularly thrilled to see some magical pavots pharmaceutiques which appear to have escaped from the industrial fields scattered around the region. These cultivated poppies are quite hard to locate so this made this encounter all the more special.

The mauve petals were offset by the more common-place red poppies, of course, and their colour was picked up by the violet vetch too. The final effect was even more striking due to the bright green of the canal water in the sunlight. The last yellow flags of Spring were still holding in there, before this week's raging temperatures set in.

Finally, a stunning wildflower field (albeit artificially sown) near the concrete complex that has grown in the most pervasive manner all around the TGV train station. Ironically, just a few years ago the whole area was just simple fields before this ambitious development project took off. Nevertheless, this vast stretch of flowers really was a beautiful sight...

Poppies and Cornflowers...

One hundred years after the end of the First World War, this landmark date does seem to send a different type of evocative light and perspective onto this huge chapter in history. The blinding tragedy of the years of the Great War and their aftermath still send out the long, chilling shadow of the Lost Generation.

Most landscapes continue to bear scars, cruel pits and pock-marks that date back to this era of violence and devastation unleashed in an unprecedented manner.

Lest we forget - Photo from Canterbury mainstreet

Reims was to become the symbol of martyred France from the outset of the hostilities and its cathedral was one of the greatest victims. Today's commemoration to mark the 11th Hour drew in the crowds but there were no former combat soldiers present - les poilus. 

Lest we forget - Photo from Canterbury mainstreet

The passing of the decades gradually swept them away before the end of the 20th century, just as the tides have washed away the portraits of the soldiers from the sands today around Britain's coast.

This passage of time means that for younger generations, the Great War really is an historic event that cannot be a point of reference for them in the same way that it and WWII were. They truly belong to another century now and are beyond all living memory. That does not mean that the door has closed on this chapter, nor ever would, but our landmarks have readjusted slightly.

Yesterday I saw the commemorations set up in Canterbury - the English town twinned with Reims. It was beautiful. Whereas the Red Poppy is the symbolic flower of the 'War to end all wars', in France it is le bleuet. 

Busy as a Bee...

Things have been hotting up here, in every sense, and yet I have ended up with... a cold.

This seems to be a strange state of affairs; feeling so low when the temperatures are so high...

And likewise unfortunate, when the work load is heavy. Finding moments of peace and tranquility is a little frustrating when you can't actually smell anything!

Poppies to remember by....

Over the past week, pockets of poppies have appeared everywhere, from the edges of fields and vineyards, to the scrappiest of building sites and scruffiest of wasteland. Whatever the location, the image of these flowers always seems to have the same visual impact.

I saw these near the fast lane of a dual carriage way, just in front of the ugly concrete mass of a bridge which has nevertheless been decorated with the head of the Smiling Angel (L'Ange au Sourire). The original sculpture became a symbol of the suffering of France during the Great War, when the cathedral of Reims was victim to the violence of war. During the bombing of the city, the angel was decapitated, the head duly fell from the façade of the edifice and shattered, thus marking "French culture destroyed by barbarity". Despite this, the angel was pieced together and just as the cathedral itself, emerged again, in phoenix fashion, from the flames and destruction, its enigmatic smile intact.

There was very little to smile about this week as yet another terrorist attack was carried out, managing to surpass others in sheer brutality by targeting the youngest civilians. Lives lost before they have even been lived. This was Manchester, but it could have been any other worn-torn country, for whatever the land it falls on, blood is still blood. Tears are still tears. And so the little poppies that emerged over the past few days seem all the more symbolic this time, ever more the image of those fallen. Here, however, the victims, as civilians, never signed up for this war, nor were they conscripted.

Orange poppies and red...

This photo looks upside down whichever way I turn it!

The poppies have been so late this year that I was even beginning to think that they would never come out in any great number... However, on closer inspection, I noticed that for every scattered, solitary cluster of poppies, there are hundreds of bristly buds, waiting to burst out. These look so determined, with their armoured pods like bristling triffids, pushing through the undergrowth and it's difficult to associate these with the delicate, papery petals of the poppies themselves, hidden within.

Triffid!!

  But of course, poppies are one of the most resistant plants in the wilderness, thriving on the harsh conditions that would stunt or deter others.

 
I came across this poem by Sandra McPherson, an American poet from California, where the poppies are indeed orange...


Poppies

Jardin des Plantes, Paris

Orange is the single-hearted color. I remember

How I found them in a vein beside the railroad,
A bumble-bee fumbling for a foothold
While the poppies' petals flagged beneath his boot.

I brought three poppies home and two buds still sheathed.
I amputated them above the root. They lived on artlessly
Beside the window for a while, blazing orange, bearing me
No malice. Each four-fanned surface opened

To the light. They were bright as any orange grove.
I watched them day and night stretch open and tuck shut
With no roots to grip, like laboratory frogs' legs twitching
Or like red beheaded hens still hopping on sheer nerves.

On the third afternoon one bud tore off its green glove
And burst out brazen as Baby New Year.
Two other poppies dropped their petals, leaving four
Scribbly yellow streamers on a purple-brimmed and green

Conical cadaver like a New Year's hat.
I'd meant to celebrate with them, but they seemed
So suddenly tired, these aging ladies in crocheted
Shawl leaves. They'd once been golden as the streets

Of heaven, now they were as hollow.
They couldn't pull together for a last good-bye.
I had outlived them and had only their letters to read,
Fallen around the vase, saying they were sorry. 

Sandra McPherson

Although I just assumed that most poppies bore the same markings, in fact they don't. Some have dark crosses surrounding their powdery stamens, while others appear to have nothing.

Well, even if it's back to grey skies and rain again for today, bicycle rides along the canal are back on track! And I will be watching for the moment when all those buds release their tissue-paper treasure and the fields are edged with red...

All dried up & twisted!

Despite it being summer, it's too damp and certainly not warm enough to tempt me out so here I am looking at the various objects around the room.... A mixed collection of dried and twisted objects, mineral and otherwise, amongst them the old favourites of ornamental garlic, poppies heads and twisted hazelnut branches...
While I have no interest in trying any opium deratives myself, I find the history of opium interesting in itself, if not pretty devastating... Apparently the German pharmacist Sertürner was the first to isolate pure morphine from opium in 1817 and deserved the title of 'father of alkaloid chemistry'. Indeed, he recognised the analgesic and euphoric effects of the substance derived from the poppy, yet it took longer to establish the physiological addiction it gave rise to. The compound was named Morphium after Morpheus the Greek god of dreams, and in the Victorian period it was taken in significant amounts by a significant proportion of the population without initially inciting the opprobium reserved for alcohol by the temperance groups. In medical preparations, this was admininstered to adults and children alike, while even Marx remarked on this English tendancy to give babies opium. Its capacity to induce vivid dreams, and trance-like states was soon to give rise to a recreational use of the substance, and not surprisingly, at this time it began to take on a more clandestine identity and this led to the opening of opium dens.
There were many famous users and abusers of opium-derivatives in the latter part of the 19th century, one of the most common ways of taking the drug being in the form of laudanum. There are many references to laudanum in literature of the period and indeed many writers, such as Wilkie Collins were addicted to it, and perhaps depended on its muse-like qualities in the creative process. Lewis Carroll not only took opium, but seems to allude to it with his hookah-puffing caterpillar "You are old, Father William..." in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Women were frequent suffers of narcotic addiction as it was often given as a remedy for 'feminine complaints', and it also had the advantage of giving the taker a palid complexion - a vital asset to woman aspiring to look 'pale and interesting'. Lizzie Siddal, Rossetti's muse and mistress, became one of more famous female addicts, due to the Pre-Raphaelite Millais' depiction of her as Ophelia, but the writer Elizabeth Barratt Browning was equally dependent on her daily intake.
Many medicinal products of the time were conserved in glass bottles - and at this time the distinctive Victorian poison bottles were developed. These had the aim of reducing accidental deaths due to the confusing of substances by an often illiterate public, unable to read the labels and the appropriate warnings.... But that will be a tale for another evening....

Red, red poppies...

Despite my attempts, this year I just can't find the field with the pharmaceutical opium flowers! However, faute de mieux I found some bright red poppies and they never fail to amaze me with their colour, even if they're not quite so exotic...

 Throughout history the poppy has always been associated with sleep and repose - even eternal rest. It is, of course, symbolic of the fallen soldier and the emblem of Remembrance Day; the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month. In Christian churches during the Medieval period poppies were carved into the wooden benches to represent Man's need for rest and reflection when contemplating his last day.

In the Wizard of Oz (written by L.Frank Baum in 1900) there are the magical, yet 'deadly' fields of poppies causing visitors to sleep forever.

"They now came upon more and more of the big scarlet poppies, and fewer and fewer of the other flowers; and soon they found themselves in the midst of a great meadow of poppies. Now it is well known that when there are many of these flowers together their odor is so powerful that anyone who breathes it falls asleep, and if the sleeper is not carried away from the scent of the flowers, he sleeps on and on forever. But Dorothy did not know this, nor could she get away from the bright red flowers that were everywhere about; so presently her eyes grew heavy and she felt she must sit down to rest and to sleep."

The poppy was also considered to be a talisman for good luck in love, health & money and was particularly beneficial for those in a transitional period in their lives. I especially like that notion...