Draft footnote of the day: red flowers in Flanders Fields

104:19-20 Red flowers grew through his flesh John McCrae’s 1915 poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ commemorates the fact of red poppies blooming abundantly in battlefields that saw some of the heaviest casualties during World War One: ‘In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row’ (1-2). Line six begins ‘We are the dead.’ Since 1920, the red poppy has been a symbol of remembrance of the war dead.