The Wind and the Poppies

My garden is finally beginning to look like a garden. Despite the wind, the shocks of freezing mornings and dry hot afternoons, my poppies are continuing to bloom. I came home from the dog park to find my Princess Victoria Louise poppies blowing in the wind. 

I don't know what ineffable quality about poppies that I find so alluring. When I was in college in New Orleans I read a biography of Georgia O'Keeffe by Laurie Lisle. It might have been O'Keeffe's iconic images of the flowers that drew me out here and romanticized the Southwest. The images continue to resonate with me to this day. I'm attracted to poppies the way other gardeners are obsessed with roses or orchids or succulents.