Poppies in Winter

When I moved five years ago, I decided to keep a beautiful centerpiece on my kitchen table, in all seasons, from fall maple leaves to spring daffodils to summer poppies. They have brought cheer and color to my little dining room. These silk and plastic decorations, from the dollar store, never fade in the dark or the cold. The poppies are my favorite, and sit on my table still in late winter. Their vase is a papier machet bottle made by my sister in elementary school. Admiring them both from my sofa, I decided they deserved a poem.

Poppies in Winter

my poppies are plastic, yet
they huddle so prettily
on my dinner table with a real sun-
fire brilliance in summer

I smell their perfume, I
fancy

my poppies stand in a bunched bouquet
in a narrow neck of glass glazed
with mottled patches of rust and brown,
earth of paper and glue

since grade school arts and crafts the bottle
has hid on a closet shelf until becoming
soil for my poppies:
sun-fire scarlet in winter

Roger Baker is the author of Rabbit Lane: Memoir of a Country Road. The book tells the true life story of an obscure farm road and its power to transform the human heart. The book is available in print and for Kindle at Amazon. See Rabbit Lane reviewed in Words and Pictures.

8 thoughts on “Poppies in Winter”

Patricia Ann March 3, 2020 at 7:03 AM

Ah, we all need poppies in winter, Roger. Nice poem (and nice vase).

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Roger Baker-Utah Post authorMarch 3, 2020 at 7:51 PM

Thanks Patsy.

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Harv Russey March 3, 2020 at 5:19 PM

Good job Roger. Whenever l feel that l need a lift l get out my copy of your Rabbit Lane book and read a while and soak up some grand old memories of that sweet old place and the other places that l hold so dear that you mention in it. Again l thank you for bringing them all together!

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