#87 Poppies
#87 Poppies
When I was a little girl, I lived across the street from a vacant lot in Southern California. It had no buildings, no fences, and no people! Well, there were some little people there and some tall grass, weeds, and California Poppies!
This was summer heaven for my neighborhood friends and me! We would spend hours and hours there— just playing! No computers or TVs. Just dirt, rocks, grass, weeds, and glorious California Poppies!
We would purposefully walk down a section of the grass to make our own personal “fort”. Then we would proceed to make a path from one fort to another. We were a social group!
I need to be clear on what it means to say “weeds”. This was tall grass—taller than my 2-year-old sister but not taller than me– or my 5-year old little brother. But when we sat down in our little fort, no one could see us! Not even our Mom when she called us in for supper but she knew we were there!
Besides the tall weeds, there were lots of poppies growing there! I have no picture of this, except in my mind. They were wild. No one planted them (well, except God!). Some were a beautiful deep tangerine color and some were a bright yellow, like the ones Sonie painted in print #87.
When I was in high school, I of course had neither time nor interest in playing in the field but a terrible thing happened. Someone, without asking me, plowed up the weeds and the California poppies and planted a bowling alley with a big black parking lot. Now please tell me how that was better than the glorious field of weeds and poppies.
Years later, it makes me happy to look at print #87 because it takes me back to that vacant lot that wasn’t vacant: it was filled with hours of bliss and brilliant, glorious California poppies!
If you would like to “play” among the California poppies then #87 poppies is for you!
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