Their tender hardiness a mystery
rising
and falling
with rain and weather
planting fiery spears
in backyard gardens
shouting from empty lots
running riot along highway medians
vermillion skirts ruffling orchards
in the valley of the San Joaquin
where I was born
fields of gold
for my forebears dragging
their wagons over the Sierra
Qupe, dream giver, for the Chumash
who tell of girls gathering poppies
so overcome by beauty
they yielded to boys
copas de oro, cups of gold
trampled
by the jangling hooves of Spanish horses
unfurling sheets of fire
over hills and valleys
multitudes
sun-struck by the blaze
no human sense to their wild abandon
the burning tumult
of their blossoms
the way they light our minds from inside
—
Frances Davis is an essayist and poet whose and work has been published in the L.A. Times, New Verse News, Calyx, The Chattahoochee Review, The Vincent Brothers Review, Reed Magazine, Passager, The Hopper, and several anthologies. She is a winner of the Lamar York prize York prize for nonfiction and a Pushcart Prize nominee.
