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Flowers of California: California Poppy

By Tania Runyan 2 Comments

california poppy

In Praise of the California Poppy

When the French-born explorer Adelbert von Chamisso sailed into San Francisco Bay in 1816, he became mesmerized by hillsides of pure gold. He would give the four-petaled wildflower the name Eschscholzia californica, named for his friend Johann Friedrich Eschcholtz. (Johann would then turn around and name a lupine for Chamisso, Lupinus chamissonis. Apparently, there’s a lot of nepotism in the flower naming world, and I’m not jealous at all.)

Making Peace with Paradise Tania Runyan

California poppies, which were declared the state flower in 1903, truly are a marvel. Like many humans I know, they thrive in difficult conditions. Sandy soil disturbed by tractors, footprints, and drought? Bring it, these feisty little flames holler from the mountains and deserts each spring. They’ve been compared to cups of gold, sunlight, fire, and just about every other metaphor for warmth you can imagine.

Several Aprils ago, when I landed at LAX to visit my childhood home and relatives, I was taken mostly by the poppies’ simplicity in contrast with the complex landscapes, people, and challenges of my home state. While these pure little blossoms trigger memories that aren’t so simple, they’ve always comforted me. Here’s my letter, in pantoum form, to the California poppy.

Pantoum for the California Poppy

You’re too pure for metaphor,
lighting the runway as I descend
into the cracked earth of my childhood
when cups of sun or gold

lit my runaway mind descending
down hillsides of Alone.
You’re less than cups of sun and gold,
gloriously less than greenlace fingers waving

down the hillside. You’re never alone
in your love of spinning barely rain
to glorious, green-laced figures waving
in orange cellulose, softer than skin.

You, love, spin the bare rain
into a specimen I split in biology class,
orange cellulose soft on my skin
as I dreamed of escaping into chloroplasts.

The specimen I split in biology class,
the one of you I landed on a glass slide,
is now a dream of escaped chloroplasts
still energizing the atmosphere

where I land and touch the glass, slide
among your fluttering corollas.
The energy in the atmosphere
is too searing to be matched with fire.

Among your fluttering corollas
I visit the cracked earth of my childhood,
too searing to be matched with fire,
too perilous for metaphor.

—Tania Runyan

Your turn

Write a poem to your state flower and share it with us below! (Want to write it pantoum form? Learn how to write a pantoum in Tania’s book How to Write a Form Poem: A Guided Tour to 10 Fabulous Forms.)

Photo by micheile dot com on Unsplash. Post by Tania Runyan.

Making Peace with Paradise Tania Runyan
5 star

“Runyan is as kind as she is funny, and she excels at self-deprecating humor, the best kind.”

—Glynn Young, author and reviewer

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Tania Runyan
Tania Runyan
Tania Runyan lives in Lindenhurst, Illinois, a sort-of suburb, sort-of small town, where the deer and the minivans play. She's a 2011 NEA fellow and mama to four poetry books—A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight, Delicious Air, and What Will Soon Take Place—and three (much cuter and noisier) human children. Tania is also the author of five non-fiction books—Making Peace with Paradise, How To Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, How to Write a Form Poem, and How to Write a College Application Essay. Visit her at TaniaRunyan.com
Tania Runyan
Latest posts by Tania Runyan (see all)
  • Flowers of California: California Poppy - December 8, 2022
  • Flowers of California: Lily of the Nile - October 13, 2022
  • Flowers of California: Crape Myrtle - October 5, 2022

Filed Under: Blog, California, Flower Poems, Flowers of California, Pantoum, Pantoum Poems, poetry prompt

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About Tania Runyan

Tania Runyan lives in Lindenhurst, Illinois, a sort-of suburb, sort-of small town, where the deer and the minivans play. She's a 2011 NEA fellow and mama to four poetry books—A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight, Delicious Air, and What Will Soon Take Place—and three (much cuter and noisier) human children. Tania is also the author of five non-fiction books—Making Peace with Paradise, How To Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, How to Write a Form Poem, and How to Write a College Application Essay. Visit her at TaniaRunyan.com

Comments

  1. Megan Willome says

    December 14, 2022 at 2:54 pm

    As a Californian, I’m betting you know Dana Gioia’s poem “California Hills in August.” It’s where I first learned about the California poppy. Thanks for enriching my floral knowledge base!

    I don’t think I can write another bluebonnet poem, after my “Still,” which was in The Joy of Poetry. But here’s my go at California’s flower, somewhat modeled on Vachel Lindsay’s “The Dandelion.”

    The Poppy

    O native, happy poppy!
    Golden-orange and bright
    Queen of California
    You close only at night

    I spy you on the road signs
    and all the Scenic Routes
    Your hippy petals dancing
    (hey, what’s all that about?)

    You thrive in wet, you thrive in drought,
    You thrive despite our feet
    We cannot kill your wanton roots
    You thrive without conceit

    Reply
    • Tania Runyan says

      December 15, 2022 at 8:08 am

      I love this, Megan! Bravo to your wonderful rhythm and rhyme! I love the reference to the poppy on the Scenic Route signs!

      Reply

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