Ah, poppies! I love their awkward grace, their lanky, wandering stems. I love their crumpled, translucent petals that catch fire in the sun and the little fat packages that are the pale green buds.
When I was sixteen I spent a summer in Poland, and I saw from the train window cottages with small front yards entirely filled with blooming poppies. At the time I thought it was the delightful gesture of beauty-loving homeowners. Now I realize they were probably planted for their seeds. I had only known poppy seeds sprinkled on buns and buttered egg noodles (yum), so it was surprising to bite into a Polish coffee-cake and find a thick layer of sweetened poppy seeds.
Poppies don't make great cut flowers. I think you have to plunge them up to their necks in water as you pick them, then quickly take them out and sear the bottom of the stem with a match before you put them in their vase. But surely if an angel gathered them they would stay nice for awhile without all that trouble.
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