Poppies in Cyprus

   

In Flanders fields^[1] the poppies grow from Ypres’ site of destruction and death, bringing its bright blooms of life back to the place. The jolly bobbing flowers with their delicate, silken petals are at odds with the churned up fields of devastation from which they grow.

As I was reminded as I wandered the necropolis of Kato Paphos, Cyprus. The battle fields of Ypres now (I have visited) are a beautifully respected and cared for monument to the fallen, shining white rows of headstones with a name and story for each. A similar feeling of respect and honour greets me at Paphos, with its elegantly carved underground burial chambers to hold the dead in their final resting place. The site is like its own city for those who have passed, with courtyards, pathways and doorways into chambers, and sculpted pillars as memorial homage. 

Carved entirely into solid natural rock, the doorways are surrounded by bright red poppies growing anywhere they can take hold in the dusty, baked soil. Swathes of sunshine-coloured crown daisies cover the hills above the graves, with clusters of scarlet poppies spilling out and down below. The further I wandered the more prevalent the poppies became. What is a sombre place, of burial for the dead, first built in the third century BC, is lifted by the joyful heads of the poppies.

On return to England, I held these images in my mind’s eye, with the sense of the poppy as the hope that springs out of demolished soil and grows around the graves of the passed. As I wrote about the year’s climate change-induced phenomena in California, including at the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve, I kept a glimmer of hope in ecological time (a timespan much longer than we are used to envisioning), where poppy seeds can rest undisturbed for eighty years underground until the churning of the soil brings them to the surface and the light brings forth their blooms again. Nature is resilient and waits the long game, a mindset that we would benefit from having, to invest now for a future beyond ourselves.

The new issue of IMMINENT (with my sketches of poppies in Cyprus) is titled Rage and Hope. You can read more and order issues from my online shop. 

  [1] In Flanders Fields is a poem by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian soldier in WW1. He wrote the poem after the Second Battle of Ypres when he noticed how quickly poppies appeared around the graves of his fellow soldiers. Its image of the red poppies resulted in the poppy becoming a symbol of memorial for those who have died in conflict.

In Flanders Fields

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.