A wee pink-purple poppy.

She stood, swaying in the rough dirt. 3 buds, struggling to bloom and one big, beautiful flower that took my breath away. The edges of her petals were bright pink, the centre was deep purple. Never had I seen a poppy this colour before. Red ones were common and I had seen some in purple but this to me was beyond belief, I had no idea these colours existed on this plant. 'I must be lucky', I thought, 'to have found this. Noone else speaks of pink-purple poppies so they must be rare'. Her roots had burst out of the ground, gasping for nutrients having been starved by the dry earth. I brought fresh soil and compost for the plant, and began to care for her. Watering her every day when I returned from school and checking on her in the mornings before I left. I spoke to her, just as I would have liked to have been spoken to, were I a plant, alone outside, no others like myself. I urged the smaller buds to grow and flourish, not just so she would not be lonely, also because just she had brought a little beauty into the world and her three sisters could do the same.
But the weather had become highly unreasonable and the winds were cruelly fierce. I gave her more soil, to make her roots more secure in the dirt, but it was not enough. One day, I returned from school and saw my poppy lying on her side, almost completely uprooted. I panicked and scooped her up, out of the soil and I lay her on the ground next to me. I dug a small hole with a stick and filled it with with compost, placed her roots in it and covered them, standing her upright and trying to firm the soil to hold her positon. I sat with her and spoke to her still, and took a photo, just in case.
Always, when I got out of the taxi from school, I could see her as soon as I got out. Bold and beautiful, she was hard not to look at. But one day she was different. the bright pink blob i saw from metres away had changed shape. My bag hit the floor as I dropped it and ran to her. The worst had happened. One pink-purple petal was on the ground, browned at the edges. 2 of the 3 sister buds had given up and started to wilt. I knew she was dying, but still watered her and sat with her every day. I watched the last few of her silky soft petals fall to the ground day after day and stayed with the dying buds until they had blackened and died too.
The heads hollowed and soon I took the seeds. I longed to plant them, to see those gorgeous vibrant colours again. I kept the heads in a food bag, in case I lost some seeds, and kept the bag on the windowsill, trapped inbetween books. Alas, with people in the house bumping into the books, the bag was soon dislodged. Many a time I moved it, many a time it happened again, until soon, it was nowhere to be found. Thus, I lost hope for my pink poppys and after a while, gave up the search for the seeds. I felt I had let her down, and the world. The beauty was gone. Four lives had gone, ones I had cherished and ones I know had tried hard at life. At first I blamed the wind, for uprooting them in the first place. But the wind was nature, and nature was the poppies, so I couldnt blame that. I blamed myself instead. Had I put her in a pot and sheltered her from the winds violent rages, she might have lived. I hoped some seeds had already thrown themselves to the ground and grown, but I was moving on. By the next poppy season, I would live in a new home, and would seldom come here.

I walk up the path, towards my new house, carrying a box of by belongings, my mother and sister ahead of me. I step into my garden and stop dead in my tracks. There, in the border near the fence, is a cluster of poppies, dead now and brown, but still standing, their heads still full of seeds. I stand in front of them, and pull the heads off, gently and take them inside where I empty the seeds out onto the lid of a jam jar. I pour some into my hand and scatter them in the garden, near the hedge, in the corner, anywhere. I want the garden to be full of colour, no matter what colout it may be. I pour the rest of them onto the border, next to the previous lot and then stop and stare. Tears form in my eyes as I smile at this precious sight I had given up hope for. There on the ground inbetween the cracks in the earth, is a petal. A poppy petal. A pink-purple poppy petal.

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