I saw the poppies in the sacred way (Via Sacra, in the old Roman Forum in Rome). In full red-blood bloom. Scattered in tiny patches nearby the Roman ruins, the blood of the ancients running in their petals. As if the poppies knew the legions which marched the path.

It's the first time I've seen the red poppies. I've heard about them, seen pictures, read of Flander's fields. But this was the first time I've seen them with all my senses.

I picked a couple, felt the petals, more accurately, its flesh. The flesh of the fallen represented in the petals. The fleshy, bloody poppies.

I recalled the words of John McCrae, beseeching the future generations to recall the dead. To find meaning to their violent fates, to never forget them. The red poppies do not bloom everywhere at which men fall to the mad call of Mars and their generals, but it is in the places which they bloom which urge the future generations to remember them all.

I saw a red poppy, and the ghosts which nurture their bloom. Both those who are known by men and some known to God alone.