Rosslyn Redux

Tag: Poppy

  • Poppy Poems

    Poppy Poems

    Poppy, the haiku of flowers (Source: @virtualdavis)
    Poppy, the haiku of flowers (Source: @virtualdavis)

    Poppy poems! At last I’m bundling a batch of verse celebrating my favorite blooms. Poppies. Papaveraceae. Coquelicots… Most of these poppy poems started out as Instagram posts inspired, at least in part, by daily snapshots of poppies blooming in Rosslyn’s gardens. For this reason I’ll include links at the end of the poem if you’re interested in seeing the original posts. Just click the link and a new window will open with the poem as it originally appeared with accompanying image(s).

    Haiku Poppy Poems

    Almost ephemeral brevity, stark minimalism, and — at best — a tingly eureka moment overlap haiku’s distinctive hallmark. Delicate. Vigorous. As unlikely a juxtaposition as poppies. Exuding a fragility and sparseness, but remarkably robust and resilient, the poppy is the haiku of flowers. And so I initiate this slowly evolving post with a collection of haiku poppy poems.

    ·•·

    Pink-Tinged Poppy
    Pink-Tinged Poppy (Source: @virtualdavis)

    From velvety spokes
    a supernova outburst,
    ivory crushed silk. (@rosslynredux)

    ·•·

    Unfettered, unfazed
    by cloudburst or thunderclap,
    sensuous stalwart. (@rosslynredux)

    ·•·

    Papaver flashbacks
    bloom in frosted flowerbeds,
    daydream confections. (@rosslynredux)

    ·•·

    Come coquelicot,
    come crinkly crepe paper kin,
    come and laugh and lift. (@rosslynredux)

    ·•·

    Poppy blossoms pop
    into crepe paper fireworks
    and flamenco skirts. (@rosslynredux)

    Longer Poppy Poems

    While poppies and haikus strike me as cousins (or perhaps even as one and the same being at different stages of transmogrification), there are times when a poppy poem’s florescence exceeds the restraint of micropoetry. There are instances in which a poppy poem’s petals bloom into a lyrical sketch or rhapsody.

    ·•·

    Papaver rhoeas (Source: @virtualdavis)
    Papaver rhoeas (Source: @virtualdavis)

    Amongst vegetables,
    fruits, herbs, and spices
    pop, pop, populate
    floral fireworks,
    flamenco skirts, and
    crepe’s crinkly kin,
    the coquelicots.

    So sensuous, so
    beyond beguiling,
    so delicate yet
    robust, resilient,
    as exotic and
    mysterious as
    the whispering wind. (@rosslynredux)

    Poppy Portraits (Visual Poetry!)

    Sometimes a poem is crafted out of words, letters and spaces coalescing around a moment, an experience, a sentiment. Other times poetry is so visual that an image better conveys the poem. Please think of my “poppy portraits” as visual poems. Maybe you’ll agree that visual poems can sometimes eclipse the letter-tethered lot!

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/CgSOV5-g-WL/  

    She short video in the post above essays to distill the grace of a poppy in motion, buffeted by the breeze, petals fluttering, stem swaying. I’m not 100% pleased with this series of moving images, but it’s a start. I’m still learning the nuances of video, especially phone video. I’ll get better. Hopefully soon!

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B0a6ufKgWpj/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

    I’m as smitten with the poppy pods as the blooms. Once the papery petals yield to the wind or gravity, a handsome hull plump with poppy seeds remains. Ample. Memorial. Geometric. 

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B0GlMkNAh-1/ 

    There’s something profoundly compelling in that image, don’t you think? A mystery unraveling. Or re-raveling. Wonder is summoned, and it answers eagerly.

  • Poppies Aplenty

    Poppies Aplenty

    Poppies aplenty summer through early autumn (Source: Geo Davis)
    Poppies aplenty summer through early autumn (Source: Geo Davis)

    Poppies aplenty! A gardener can never grow too many poppies in my estimation. Biased? Yes, unabashedly biased when it comes to Papavers, I’m afraid. (The oriental poppies that we plant at Rosslyn are in the genus Papaver in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. No worries, you won’t be quizzed later.)

    So smitten am I with this almost impossibly perfect pairing of sensuous and carefree, delicate and robust, that I’ve gathered a passel of poppy poems as a rainy day elixir. Feel free to avail yourself of this sure cure if you’re stuck in the doldrums and need a boost. I can’t guarantee that the poems pack the euphoric punch of actual poppies, but they just might remind your heart and soul how to conjure these beguiling beauties out of your own memory. 

    If I could grow poppies year round, I would! (Source: Geo Davis)
    If I could grow poppies year round, I would! (Source: Geo Davis)

    Bloom Where You’re Planted

    The advice, “bloom where you are planted,” apparently owes it’s pithy endurance to the Bishop of Geneva, Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), but my first point of reference was different. It was 1999, and I had just relocated from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Paris, France. I received a book in my workplace welcome packet that had been compiled by the FACCP Franco-American Community Center of Paris. The title was Bloom Where You’re Planted: Tips for Living and Thriving in Paris.

    Although I grew up admiring poppies that my mother grew in the Adirondack’s Champlain Valley, there’s no doubt that visits to Normandy where poppies still dot green fields, and teaching John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” to my students at the American School of Paris deepened my connection to Papavers. Somehow the helpful manual provided to me in my late twenties became connected with the poppies in my memory and in my gardens.

    This morning’s poppies and the lovely reminder from Saint Francis de Sales and the good folks at the FACCP Franco-American Community Center of Paris coalesced for a fleeting moment, and the first semblance of a new poppy poem unfurled its still wrinkled petals. Not sure where it’s headed, if anywhere, but here’s where it stands today.

    Bloom where you’re planted,
    where the wind blows you,
    where you are needed.
    Bloom when conditions are perfect
    and when they are not. Bloom.

    Might need to let it rest a bit, and possibly, hopefully resurface anon. After all, I surround myself with poppies aplenty, so perhaps this poetry seed will germinate some day in the future, a reminder that preservation by neglect applies not just to orphaned buildings and blog posts, but also poems.

  • Shirley Poppy

    Shirley Poppy

    Shirley Poppy (Illustration: Geo Davis)

    A day after my bride’s “polar plunge” in still frigid Lake Champlain, I’m swimming and drifting in the warm waters of Antigua, enjoying a free ranging conversation with one of my nephews, allowing salt and surf and steel band sounds (drifting intermittently from further up the shore) to exercise the sort of deep relinquishing that comes from knowing a vacation has only just begun.

    Before departing Rosslyn I handed off germinating spring starts (broccoli and cucumbers) to Pam along with various vegetable and flower seeds that will be sown before long. Among the latter, thousands of poppy seeds. Always plenty of Red Corn Poppy (Papaver rhoeas aka Flanders Poppy) seeds as well as Shirley Poppy seeds, a cultivar of Papaver rhoeas that reminds me of my mother-in-law, Shirley Bacot Shamel. As my affection for poppies has long since escaped the restraint of manly propriety, I’ll concede that one of my spring fever symptoms is an infatuation with poppy plants, poppy blooms, poppy seed pods. And, in the case of the Shirley Poppy blooms, there’s always the added excitement since variations allow for intriguing surprises.

    So a sunset soak with Christoph, gazing back at the oasis that we’ve been fortunate to enjoy as a family for eight years, curiously preoccupied with poppies, and looking forward to wandering the grounds in the days ahead to inspect the vast array of tropical orchids cultivated at Curtain Bluff, it struck me that I needed to explore these connections in a poem. Perhaps a Shirley Poppy poem?

    Perhaps, but not today, as it turns out. The words that wanted to be written were driven in large part by a connection to place. This section seems to be headed in an interesting direction, for example.

    Upon arriving,
a warm Wadadli welcome,
a breeze mellowed sun,
familiar phrases,
cadence, laughter
lilting,
lulling, 
returning us
to the leeward lap
of ease and comfort,
a simple sanctuary
bursting with blooms
and recollections.

    A bit decadent and overwrought still probably, but I am pleased to read it aloud.

    But where am I hoping to go with this?!?! I can’t seem to see my way from tropical orchids to Shirley Poppy blooms. Nor am I certain that allowing my perennial passion for place, indeed for the poetry of place, to kidnap this still evolving verse is advisable.

    Instead I’m curious how place, right now this perfect place nestled unassumingly into the hilly shore of Old Road, as well as the memories conjured by returning here, especially memories of my late mother-in-law, somehow a little more present when we’re here, connect. And why are they bleeding into my anticipation of a bumper crop of poppies back at Rosslyn?

    Hhhmmm… Sometimes it’s wiser to admit defeat. For now. But stay tuned; I’ll try again.

    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
    High on Nectar
    
			
    High on Nectar
    
			
    


    High on Nectar (Source: Geo Davis)

    High on Nectar (Source: Geo Davis)
    

    




    I recently learned that autumn isn’t the best of times for drone honeybees, but there’s still time for the rest of us to get high on nectar. And since the humble haiku is nearly nectar in the poppy fields of poetry, I’ll defer today to an industrious honeybee high on nectar of a windblown poppy blossom.
    




    High on Nectar Haiku
    




    Pink petals flutter,
    honey bee, high on nectar,
    bustles, persistent.
    




    High on Nectar Video 
    


     
    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
    Papaver Bee-ing
    
			
    Papaver Bee-ing
    
			
    


    Papaver Bee-ing
    Papaver Bee-ing
    




    Whether hummingbirds or butterflies or honey bees or bats or scores of other pollinators accidentally doing the work of fertilizing flowers from generation to generation, the appetite for nectar powers progeny. A sweet song of perpetuity. A dulcet dance engendering poppies aplenty. 
    




    Papaver Bee-ing, Haiku
    




    By coincidence
    a poppy pollinator,
    the bee nectaring.
    




    I wonder, in our quest for mythological nectar, if we ungainly landlubbers might inadvertently be pollinating poppies. Occasionally. Let’s hope so. 
    




    
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cjtgtd9ADpQ/