to you from failing hands we throw the torch...

i stood where thousands of men, women, and children had died in the act of war. french, british, belgium, canadian, and american war memorials. the great war and world war two. hundreds of thousands of marked and unmarked gravestones. ammunition, debris, trenches and deep scars in the earth still cover the countryside. i really had no idea...

lest we forget (lest i forget...), i took these pictures while i was there, in belgium and france.

and now the torch and poppy red
we wear in honor of our dead.
fear not that ye have died for naught;
we'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
in Flanders Fields.

- moina michael, 1918

mamiya 645 taken spring 2012 in france