In Flanders Fields

As a Canadian, you learn to associate poppies with sorrow and death from a fairly young age. Nearly all Canadians wear poppy pins on their lapels during November, leading up to Remembrance day on November 22nd, and at school children are expect to memorize John McCrae's In Flanders Fields. This is why the poppies caught me by surprise when they began to bloom this spring. Suddenly every field was surrounded by a bright, red border, and some fields were completely red.

On my way to work I pass quite a few fields and every morning I'd stare at the gorgeous red and smile, because it was just so... happy. When I think of war, the image in my mind is tinged in gray, as if the standard world comes to a halt and loses its colour. It may seem odd, but in my imagination plants stopped growing during the war, so it seemed inconceivable to me that while the war was going on, the poppies continued to grow and the fields were bright red and... happy.

Photos taken by Garching-Hochbruck u-Bahn stop.