John McCrae's poem "In Flander's Field" evokes poppies blowing among rows of crosses in Flanders as the dead speak of lives recently lived, of larks flying above guns below, and of passing their quarrel with the foe to the living, who must hold the torch high and keep faith with those who died. Before Memorial Day in 1922, the VFW conducted its first poppy distribution and became the first veterans' organization to organize a nationwide distribution. The poppy soon was adopted as the official memorial flower of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States.