Each Memorial Day, when I was young, the large community cemetery behind our church filled with flags that waved across the sloping hillside. Volunteers from the VFW commemorate those soldiers who died in service to their country by placing a flag on each grave. I never saw any poppies growing as in Flanders’s Field, but many other flowers dotted the hillside along with the flags.
Memories are mixed
Joy and sorrow flows freely
as blood // and poppies
wave on the resting places
of those who never came home
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Photo: Dwight L. Roth
Frank Tassone asked to write a Haikai poem Haiku or Tanka that reflects on some aspect of Memorial Day. Check them all out at:
#Haikai Challenge #35 (5/26/18): Memorial Day #haiku #senryu #haibun #tanka #haiga #renga
Roth Poetry 
Wow! Are those the real poppy flowers! 😦 we always received the fake one’s here on de islands at school to place on our uniforms. I always wondered what they looked like in reality. Beautiful indeed.
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Yes these are real ones that I took while visiting in Virginia. They are really intense.
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Oh wow, they are so lovely!
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At one of the homes I lived in poppies grew… I must try to grow them again.
Thank you for sharing your memories, your photo and verse.
My MIL (she should rest) told me once of a friend who had perished on the Arizona. Too many have unmarked graves.
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Thank You Jules. You are right I need to grow some as well. So sad for all those who are lost and especially for those that are never found.
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Reblogged this on Frank J. Tassone and commented:
#Haiku Happenings #2: Dwight’s latest #tankaProse for my current #haikai challenge!
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Thanks Frank!
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My pleasure, Dwight 😇
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