I love this time of year when the poppies grow alongside and inside the fields of wheat. With the wind of today and yesterday they sway, attracting our attention as we walk along the lanes. They are a splash of colour on a grey day. However they do more. They are, as Mary Oliver says, an invitation to happiness. And then it dawns on me that innumerable things each day are the same. Sure. like every one of us, I am tempted, from time to time, to “drown” in moments of darkness, but so many things – like these flowers – remind me that I am given opportunities each day to collect moments of colour, little miracles of light , that give me courage to go on and renew my joy. They invite me to not just live life, but to celebrate it.
The poppies send up their orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation
of bright dust, of thin and lacy leaves.
There isn’t a place in this world that doesn’t
sooner or later drown in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while, the roughage
shines like a miracle as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold, black, curved blade from hooking forward—
of course loss is the great lesson.
But I also say this: that light is an invitation
to happiness, and that happiness,
when it’s done right, is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,
touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed in the river
of earthly delight—
and what are you going to do—
what can you do about it—
deep, blue night?
Mary Oliver, Poppies
Image by John Ecker | Pantheon Photography.
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