Flowers in Poetry

The Poppy


Sturdy, yet fragile,
a face of grace
holding on to air that moves
petals, like wings;
She loves wind’s hands upon her face
but with tenacious fingers,
crumbles clods to slowly build gates instead.

Listening, she yearns toward the road the river takes,
wanting to travel someplace unnamed, like him;
to follow the sound he makes, her whim.
A mean wind, she thinks, could take one small part;
an orange piece of heart
that could go with the flow,
even where cement would ransom beauty,
into the arms of the sea.
But she turns away instead
to dance naked with the tree,
one arm still holding tenacity.

Open me,
she calls to Sun, knowing the hour;
the wind has blown the tresses of the field alive
and on the road to harmony
she is not the only flower to thrive.
The sound of the river is life sustaining,
down, down in the middle part of earth
it seeps into the press of dirt
and fills her with love for river, sun and wind,
and now, most blessed love of all, the ground
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