California Poppy

It was a horrendous Memorial day in Iraq and Afghanistan, and despite all the holiday bluster from our fearless leaders, more evidence that the flower of our young are being wasted by this madness in Iraq, and our returning veterans and their families badly treated, as they often have been in our history---one of the many dirty little secrets of our warmaking. We hope for the safety of those there and those who return, and we will do our duty to them, as we condemn those who sent them there and lie in comfort.

Back in the 80's, Sting wrote a brilliant song ("Children's Crusade") which metaphorically linked senseless wars with the despair in peacetime that leads to drug addiction, through the figure of the poppy. "Flanders Fields, where poppies grow" linked that flower to the war dead, and the kind of poppies that makes heroin is of course the drug link.

But even though the California poppy was used medicinally by Native peoples, and reputedly produces a mild sedative effect when smoked, I love it irrationally for its luminous beauty and its wild abundance. I sing more of its praises here.