Where Flowers Go

“They may have won the battles, but we had the best songs.”

• Tom Lehrer (1928 — ); American songwriter, satirist, mathematician

Lotus: Author

One of my favorite Pete Seeger (1919–2014; American folk singer and social activist) songs remains “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

I marveled at the mastery of the lyrics and used to wonder about the stanza beginning with the words of the title.

Where did Seeger get such inspiration?

So simple.

So lovely.

So true.

In case you need a reminder or have never heard the song before, here’s a link, wherein the song is performed by Seeger himself:

I was reminded of this lovely and poignant song, a probable favorite of antiwar activists everywhere, when I encountered the news of a brief encounter between an old Ukrainian woman and a Russian soldier who had invaded her land.

This evolving, as Russia has, just this past week, invaded Ukraine.