Thank you to Michelle Rauch for the video!
Three days a week, members of Oregon District 2 Indivisible form a “Banner Team” at the Suncrest Road and Interstate 5 overpass in Talent, Oregon.
The Monday demonstration this week was special, as May 25 was Memorial Day.
Alongside the usual patriotic symbols, the team displayed large images of poppies in honor of soldiers who lost their lives in service to their country.
This poppy symbolism originates with a 1915 poem, “In Flanders Fields” by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian soldier of World War I.
In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
The poppy has become a traditional symbol of remembrance of soldiers lost, especially in Canada and the U.S.
The weekly schedule of ORD2’s Banner Teams can be found in the group’s Action Calendar.
The Visibility Brigade is a national movement promoting “physical messaging in the real world” to fight fascism.