Thoughts on poppies

I've felt very touched and supported by the empathic responses to my reflections yesterday. Obviously I'm not alone in feeling overwhelmed by sadness for the present situation and concern about the future. (There are many comments I'd like to reply to but I can't guarantee I'll manage it - please be assured I appreciate them enormously.)

Today I didn't attend, watch or hear any of the remembrance day events but I was aware they were going on. As I took a load of laundry out to the washing line I noticed a few Welsh poppies still blooming and felt a sense of relief to see the yellow rather than the super-abundance of red we've had recently. I'm well aware of the significance of the Flanders Field poppies - dormant seeds springing briefly to life in the disturbed battle ground - but the Welsh poppy, Meconopsis cambrica, is different. For one thing it's perennial, reappearing year after year, and for another it has a long blooming period. I usually find the first flowers in April, growing unbidden from crevices in the garden paths and walls, and here they are still in November. You could call it a survivor, not a victim.

But yellow is a colour associated with cowardice, isn't it? [From what I can gather, that usage is imported from American speech, the yellow-belly insult relating to some military engagement where one side distinguished themselves by wearing yellow sashes - or else it was a racist slander directed towards the Mexicans.]
And cowardice is what the WW1 'deserters' were accused of. And executed for. 306 British soldiers were shot for desertion, mutiny, cowardice and disciplinary breaches. Many were suffering from shell shock (which would now be termed post-traumatic stress disorder) and other psychological conditions. Some were only 17 years old. And a 19 year-old who ran away after his twin brother was killed.
In recent years these soldiers have been officially pardoned but the fact remains.

You can read something about this here, while here is some very moving footage about the circumstances in which the deserters were put to death, along with personal testimony by the redoubtable Harry Patch. Essential viewing.

As well as being remembrance day it's also the anniversary of the death of Dylan Thomas, 61 years ago, so the Welsh poppy seems doubly apposite.

This poem of his, without being about a specific historical event (although written in 1933 when the poet was 19 and had grown up during and in the aftermath of the Great War) addresses the callous cynicism of rulers who endorse wholesale destruction regardless of the human cost.